


Reason and the Will

by peach_oolong



Series: The Diana LaFrenz Chronicles [1]
Category: Bots Master
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon Backstory, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Corporal Punishment, Corporate Espionage, Dysfunctional Family, Evil Corporations, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Mutually Unrequited, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Possibly Unrequited Love, Science Fiction, Technology, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-15 12:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 63,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4606668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peach_oolong/pseuds/peach_oolong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the girl Diana LaFrenz became the woman known as Lady Frenzy, under the svengali influence of Lewis Leon Paradim. Pre-Adios ZZ, until the final chapter</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Incident in International Waters

“Well, old boy, I can’t exactly see myself getting behind this venture you’re proposing. It all seems a bit fantastical. A little too sci-fi for my taste.”

“I can assure you that there’s nothing ‘sci-fi’ about my proposal. Dot-coms are just a fad; robotics are the wave of the future. The statistics that I have provided for you clearly indicate how the rudimentary automation of the twentieth century improved workplace productivity exponentially and...”

“Numbers make my head hurt; I’ll take your word for it.”

Lewis Leon Paradim inwardly cringed, but forced himself to maintain a superficially cheerful exterior. He was on the deck of the private pleasure yacht of Lord Thomas “Tommy” Perceval LaFrenz VI, a wealthy and thoroughly idiotic British aristocrat and his wife Sophie. Also present were roughly two hundred of the couples’ best friends, who were eagerly partying like it was 1999, precisely because it would soon no longer be 1999. The boat, known as _Naughty Bits_ , was moored in international waters off the California coast, because Tommy thought that doing so would put the revelers outside of the reach of the law. The group was gathered together in honor of the new year, century, and millennium - as if the jet set needed an excuse for partying - but Paradim’s purpose was strictly business. Paradim’s assumption of the reins of the MegaFact Corporation, a venerable firm that had made mainframe computer hardware for more than half a century, after the death of his father meant that he already had more resources at his disposal than most thirty year olds. His first act as CEO was to purge the company of his father’s associates, older men who thought that they could take advantage of his youth. After filling the vacancies with individuals loyal to him, Paradim decided to take the company in a radical new direction: artificial intelligence. The company would be re-branded the Robotic Megafact Corporation to illustrate its purpose was the manufacture of robotics, not simply computer parts. However, this new direction could not be proceed without a major overhaul of its current research and development facilities, something that could only be accomplished with a fresh infusion of investor capital. This plan required him to grovel at the feet of the rich and useless, like Tommy LaFrenz.

The problem was that Paradim had absolutely no respect for Tommy LaFrenz, which made sucking up to him nothing short of an endurance test. Tommy combined the unearned sense of entitlement of the traditional British aristocracy with the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1960s youth counterculture. At the age of fifty-five, Tommy should have outgrown his hippie stage forty years ago. However, Tommy’s seemingly endless wealth combined with his knack for choosing the right stocks enabled him to defer adulthood indefinitely and pursue a parasitic lifestyle of pleasure-seeking. To Paradim, Tommy LaFrenz was the living embodiment of why the British peerage system should be abolished. Tommy may have been an idiot, but he was an idiot with money and was eager to invest in projects that could finance his aimless lifestyle. He seemed to have some sort of acumen for business in his otherwise vacant head, because he had invested wisely in tech stock which he sold for large sums of money at the height of the dot-com bubble. If Paradim could direct some of Tommy’s wealth in his own direction, the future of the nascent Robotic Megafact Corporation was solid. Given how much money Tommy was willing to waste on yachts, gambling, drugs and the like, Paradim hoped that the idiotic aristocrat would have few qualms about investing in experimental technologies.

Affecting mock indecision, Tommy turned to the woman sitting behind him and asked, “What do you think about this, Sophie?”

The woman in question shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, and took a deep drag off a cigarette.

Forty-two year old Sophie Lebec LaFrenz was the type of woman who looked beautiful at every stage of life, from babyhood to middle-age. From a physical standpoint, the advent of another birthday for Sophie did not mean that she was getting older (although this was true from a strictly biological perspective), only that she was simply entering a new stage of beauty. Sophie’s looks were even impervious to the effects of her decadent lifestyle, for like Tommy, she considered the pursuit of pleasure to be her full-time job. Her family pedigree was as storied as her husband’s. Her paternal family, the Lebecs, had been French aristocrats who managed to escape the guillotine and continue being rich throughout the various political incarnations of the French nation. Sophie was the sole heiress of the House of Lebec, a multi-billion dollar cosmetics and fashion house that was started by her grandfather Herve Lebec in the early 20th century. Her mother’s side consisted of a line of ex-German princes known as the Hoffendorfs, who once ruled over a tiny kingdom that consisted of a ruined convent and a several flocks of a rare species of mountain goat. Because the Hoffendorf “kingdom” was so small and inconsequential, the convent and its mountain goats were still owned by the family, although no one ever figured out what to do with the land. In practical terms, being the ruler of a couple hundred mountain goats wasn’t much to brag about, but in the kind of circles in which Sophie tended to travel, having a “Graf” attached to your name conferred an incalculable amount of social capital.

On this particular night, Sophie appeared to be pale and glassy-eyed. Paradim assumed that her condition was due to a combination of drugs, alcohol, lack of sleep, and possibly seasickness, and paid little attention to her. She smoked incessantly, casually flicking the butts into the ocean, as if she thought that cigarettes would soothe her mystery illness.

“Are you feeling well, Sophie?” Paradim inquired in an attempt to show some sort of token respect to his hosts.

“Not so well,” mumbled Sophie. She stared blankly at the two men for several minutes, before excusing herself to the facilities.

“Sophie’s been feeling rather poorly lately,” Tommy confided, once his wife was out of earshot. “I can’t imagine what’s wrong with her.”

“She might feel better if she gave up the weed and the coke,” Paradim replied dryly.

“That goes to show how much you know,” Tommy said triumphantly. “Sophie’s only been smoking cigarettes for the past year. Something about trying to cut back.”

“Cigarettes kill more people than weed and coke combined,” Paradim observed.

“I suppose she’ll have to see a doctor once we get back on land,” Tommy continued, ignoring Paradim's health-related commentary. “Enough about that unpleasantness. Why are you coming to me with this scheme again?”

“I’m approaching you as an entrepreneur looking for venture capital.”

“Weren’t they saying the same thing about that ‘dot-com’ business?”

“Contrary to what you may think, your wife’s money isn’t going to last forever, especially given your frivolous spending habits and your unwillingness to even entertain the possibility of getting a real job. Since we both know you're not going to cut back on expenses or get a job, business investments are going to be your best bet in terms of maintaining the life that you've become accustomed to”

Paradim then launched into a lengthy sales pitch, complete with graphs, statistics, and charts - to an uncomprehending Tommy. He was so enthralled by the brilliance of his proposed venture that he failed to notice that Tommy was squirming in his chair and looking at a group of comely aspiring models. When his monologue had reached the thirty-minute mark, Paradim finally realized that Tommy’s attention was elsewhere.

“Haven’t you been paying attention, you idiot?” Paradim shouted, tossing a pile of graphs at his would-be investor in a fit of frustration.

“Not really,” Tommy drawled, as he casually tossed the errant papers into the ocean. “I’m already rich; what good would this do me?”

“Personal robotics is an emerging and dynamic field. If you get into the field early, your personal wealth will be doubled or even tripled.”

Tommy stroked his beard, as if he was contemplating something, finally saying, “I don’t think I like you telling me what to do.”

“I'm not telling you to do anything,” Paradim insisted. “I'm giving you the heads up on an exciting business opportunity.”

“Business is so vulgar,” Tommy said, glancing at the models again.

“Business keeps your boat afloat, your crew paid, and your entourage interested,” Paradim replied, using logic that he thought Tommy would understand.

“I don't need advice from you. I am member of the peerage and you’re just a greengrocers’ grandson. I don’t have to take orders from you.”

Before Paradim could put the spoiled lord in his place, the two men were startled by the bloodcurdling scream of a woman in distress.

“Somebody come quickly!” cried a middle-aged socialite. “Lady LaFrenz is bleeding to death!”

By the time Tommy and Paradim reached the bathroom, Sophie’s prone, bloodied form was already surrounded by a crowd of useless gawkers.

“I just had that carpet redone!” Tommy cried, oblivious or indifferent to the unfortunate turn in his wife’s health.

While Tommy complained about the ruined carpet, he was approached by the captain of the vessel, who was carrying a small, wriggling creature wrapped up in a blue bath towel.

“My monogrammed towels!” Tommy exclaimed, without looking at the bundle. “They’re ruined!”

“Congratulations, Tommy,” the captain said hesitantly. “You’re a father.”

The unexpected announcement finally stopped Tommy’s ramblings. “What?”

The captain thrust the squirming creature in Tommy’s direction and said, “You’re a father. Lady LaFrenz’s just gave birth to a girl.”

“What?” The color drained from Tommy’s skin, and he backed away from the baby as if he was being presented with a skunk. “What?”

The crowd tittered at the announcement of the birth.

“Did you know Lady LaFrenz was pregnant?”

“She wasn’t showing at all! I never would have guessed!”

“Has Lady LaFrenz been using lately? I hope the poor thing isn’t born addicted.”

With the hostess incapacitated, the party ended, and the ship sailed full speed to the mainland so Sophie and the unnamed baby could receive medical treatment. When Sophie arrived at the hospital, she began ranting and raving to such a point that she had to be restrained for her own good. While the other guests went their separate ways in search of more cheap thrills, Paradim remained on the ship, still intent on getting his seed money, regardless of the current circumstances. He found Tommy in the captain’s office, along with a medic who was holding the baby in the soiled towel and trying in vain to impress upon the new father the gravity of his new role. Paradim loitered casually outside the office door, which was slightly ajar, and waited for Tommy to reemerge.

“Do you have a name for the baby?” the medic asked, rocking back and forth slightly as the baby whimpered.

“Name?”

“Every baby’s got to have a name, sir.”

Tommy glanced at a well-read coffee table book on the doctor’s bookshelf that commemorated the life and unfortunate death of Princess Diana. “Diana will do, I suppose.”

“Middle name?”

“Um, Gauloises.”

“What an interesting name,” the medic remarked. “Is it French?”

“Yes, Gauloises are my wife’s favorite brand of cigarette,” explained Tommy carelessly. “Better yet, make it hyphenated and add Gitanes. Sophie likes those too.”

“I see,” said the medic, his eyes narrowing in such a way that indicated that he wanted to comment on the new father’s naming ideas, but was prevented from doing so by the demands of tact and customer service.

“Well, what about Sophie?”

“She’s doing fairly well from a physical standpoint, but she seems to have had a nervous breakdown, sir.”

“Who wouldn’t after giving birth at sea?” Tommy said, becoming petulant. “It’s not like she was expecting it.”

“You mean Mrs. LaFrenz didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“Of course not. If Sophie knew she certainly would have had an abortion. And it's Lady LaFrenz; we're aristocrats.”

“I assume that Lady LaFrenz will be held in the psychiatric ward until she’s deemed fit to be released. We’ll be taking the baby to the hospital as well for observation. Would you care to take a look at her before we go?”

Tommy paled at the mention of the new addition, and quickly said, “Not really. Babies pretty much all look the same to me, especially when they first start out. Don’t take her to the hospital; it would bother Lady LaFrenz. I’ll have someone pick her up in an hour or two.”

“But, sir...” the medic started, shocked at the new father’s blatant lack of interest in his own child.

“Charge everything to my account. I need to see about...things.”

No sooner had Tommy staggered out of the captain’s office when he was accosted by Paradim.

“So are you in?” Paradim pressed, hoping that Tommy’s fractured state of mind would be good for his coffers.

Still in a daze, Tommy pulled out a checkbook, wrote a check for a large sum of money, and placed it in Paradim’s hand.

“I appreciate doing business with you, Tommy,” chuckled Paradim darkly. “Give my regards to the new mommy.”

“Mommy?” Tommy echoed in a confused voice.

 


	2. The Strange World of Diana LaFrenz

As Sophie LaFrenz worked to regain her sanity after her unexpected entry into motherhood, her husband decided that it would be best if their young daughter was raised in the traditional aristocratic manner; that is, outsourcing her care to servants, nurses, and tutors, while keeping contact with her biological parents to a minimum. Several hours after Diana’s birth, Tommy put the baby on a private plane, and she was deposited at Will O’ The Wisp Farm, a 200 acre estate in Washington State that he had purchased on a whim several years earlier.

The staff of Will O’ The Wisp, who were only dimly aware of the people they worked for, were shocked by the unexpected appearance of a baby into their orderly lives. The new addition required a complete and speedy restructuring of the household so it could accommodate the needs of a newborn. With Diana safely entrusted to the care of other people, Tommy and Sophie continued their pursuit of la dolce vida. For Sophie the act of giving birth combined with the disturbing fact that she was now someone’s mother was so disgusting and foul that she returned to her old drug habit, so she wouldn’t have to think about “the creature that slithered out of my womb.” Although he didn’t want to concern himself with the day-to-day banalities of fatherhood, Tommy sometimes wondered what Diana was doing or how she was developing. Every three or four months, Tommy would receive an email that contained an illustrated progress report, as if Diana was a child he was sponsoring in a developing country.

For the first three years of her life, Diana LaFrenz’s welfare was in the hands of a revolving door of Latin American nannies. The nannies never stayed for more than a few weeks or months; once they realized that the job entailed being a full-time surrogate mother, they would quit to find a position that wasn’t quite so onerous. Because her previous nannies never stayed more than three months, there had been little consistency in Diana’s daily routine; one nanny might teach her numbers and colors, while her replacement might let her spend the day screaming at the gardeners. Thus, Diana’s early life was characterized by the presence of more than two dozen “mothers,” but no motherly love.

This revolving door of caretakers ended when twenty-five year old Germaine Schelling, a newly minted Frau Doktor of Philology from the University of Berlin’s, became Diana’s full-time governess and tutor. She came from a prosperous banking family in Zurich, Switzerland that had Calvinist leanings. Although Ms. Schelling was not an orthodox believer in the faith of her fathers, she retained their austere, pessimistic view of human nature. Ms. Schelling believed that life should be characterized by hard work, discipline, and a rational order. She disliked popular culture, bright colors, and music with a beat. Her exterior was as rigid as her mindset; her body was all straight lines, sharp angles, and muted earth tones.

Ms. Schelling’s name first came to Tommy’s attention during a weekend of high stakes gambling in Monte Carlo, when he suddenly realized that the child that he had deposited back in the United States would need some kind of formal education. Not wanting to go through the trouble of having to research schools, he decided that it would be easier to hire the first semi-qualified individual he could find who could function as a private tutor, nursemaid, and substitute maternal figure. A third string Swiss soccer player with whom Tommy was playing Texas Hold’Em mentioned a friend’s sister’s daughter back in his homeland who was extremely intelligent, but unable to find the university job she wanted (“Bloody shame,” Tommy remarked at the time. “But I suppose Latin and Greek aren’t the most marketable skills these days. The economy these days is _devilishly_ tough. Or so I’ve been told. I never cared much for the classics myself. Dropped out of Eton, you know. Never went to university. Would’ve been a waste of time and money, anyway.”). Encouraged by this lead, Tommy called Ms. Schelling at her small flat in Berlin, and promised her a unique opportunity to be a private tutor for a well-bred young lady, live on a bucolic estate in the United States, and be paid a stipend that was considerably greater than what she would have made as a professor. Two days after Ms. Schelling accepted the offer, she received a one-way first class ticket to the United States, with the assurance that Tommy would handle the red tape surrounding her work visa.

*

“State your name and business, madam.”

“Germaine Schelling, sir. I have been appointed to be the tutor of Lady Diana LaFrenz.”

“Certainly, we’ve been expecting you, Ms. Schelling. You may see Lady Diana in the nursery.”

Ms. Schelling followed the head butler, a stern Afro-Britain named Ian Wolcott, to the nursery while several footmen carried her sparse luggage to her room.

“As you can see, Ms. Schelling,” began Mr. Wolcott pompously, as if he was showing off his own home. “Will ‘O the Wisp Farm is a Tudor revival mansion. Clean, elegant, classic English design. That’s how I like it.”

“Why are there crayon marks on the wall?” interrupted Ms. Schelling, noticing the works of a budding Michelangelo festooning the “clean, elegant” walls.

“Lady Diana is a bit...undisciplined,” confessed Mr. Wolcott. “We – that is to say the staff here – think that her willfulness is the result of her parents’ lack of involvement in her life.”

“Uninvolved? Don’t Lady Diana’s parents live here?”

“No. Lord and Lady LaFrenz move around quite a bit.”

“Doing what?”

“Mostly whatever they feel like,” Mr. Wolcott said evasively. “Now, if you draw your attention to this artwork, you’ll see...”

“What do you mean,” interrupted Ms. Schelling. “when you say, ‘whatever they feel like?’”

“Lord and Lady LaFrenz are independently wealthy. Unlike ourselves, they don’t have to work a traditional job for their bread and board, you might say. They don’t visit here very often. In fact, the last time we saw Lord LaFrenz, it was to deposit Lady Diana here three years ago.”

“Have you ever seen Lady LaFrenz?” asked Ms. Schelling, wondering what kind of freakish situation she had gotten herself into.

“No,” replied Mr. Wolcott. “I’ve heard she’s very beautiful, but I’ve never seen her in person.”

“And where are you from? You are different from the other servants I see around here. I detect an Oxbridge accent.”

“You guess correctly. I’m a Cambridge man. Studied the classics.”

“I see,” Ms. Schelling said flatly, her poker face hiding her joy at finding a kindred spirit in such an unlikely place. “Then how did you end up as a butler?”

“Why, for the same reason you ended up as a governess,” Mr. Wolcott said breezily. “There’s not much demand for a classicist in the Internet era, and many of the university posts are filled with tenured old men. However, a well-bred, well-educated European looks good in a fine home, so I became a butler.”

Ms. Schelling fell silent at the reminder of her inability to find suitable employment, wondering why intelligent people were forced to take jobs that were so beneath them.

“Not that it matters very much, since no one ever comes here,” Mr. Wolcott continued. “Lord and Lady LaFrenz never visit, so we just keep the maintain the estate in their absence. Oh, look, here’s our own Lady Diana.”

He opened a pink door contained a wooden sign that had the word “Nursery” posted on it.

The open door revealed two Latin American maids putting on a puppet show in Spanish for the amusement of the tiny mistress of the house. Their efforts were not appreciated by the audience of one, who screamed at the hapless servants.

“ _I hate it_ !” Lady Diana shouted in Spanish, throwing stuffed animals, picture books, dolls and whatever else she could find at the puppet stage. “ _Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!_ ”

The ethereal beauty of Lady Diana was evident, even in the midst of a temper tantrum. Her blond hair, blue eyes, willful expression, and expensive clothes – all hand-made by the House of LeBec in France – reminded Ms. Schelling of a Viking princess or a Valkyrie warrior.

“I’ll let the two of you get acquainted,” said Mr. Wolcott, making a hasty exit before Ms. Schelling could raise any further objections to her new job.

“ _Ladies, you may leave us_ ,” Ms. Schelling commanded the maids in Spanish. “ _I will be in charge of Lady Diana from henceforth._ ”

The maids followed Mr. Wolcott out of the room, relieved to be freed from their childcare duties.

“Do you speak English?” said Ms. Schelling, using the language in question.

“Yes,” the girl replied.

“Yes, what?”

Lady Diana shrugged insouciant, an action that was rewarded with a slap from a plastic ruler that Ms. Schelling pulled out of her purse. In keeping with her Calvinist background, Ms. Schelling believed that children were inclined towards barbarism, and the only way to prevent a child from falling prey to its natural wickedness was to break its spirit and train it onto the path of civilized behavior. The girl, who had never been subject to any type of discipline, corporal or otherwise, was too shocked to cry or even protest her treatment.

“From this point on, you will end every direct question from me with ‘Ms. Schelling,’” the governess said coldly. “When you are addressed by other adults, you will use ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ If you fail to comply with my wishes, you will be switched. You will also be switched if you talk back to me, cry, or throw a tantrum. I will instruct the staff not to refer to you as ‘Lady’ anymore, as that title is probably giving you an inflated ego. I am now responsible for your education and upkeep and I will not tolerate any subordination. Am I clear?”

Diana nodded her head, despite being ignorant of the meaning of the word “subordination.” This nonverbal answer earned her another hit from the ruler.

“A nod is not an appropriate response to a question from an adult. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ms. Schelling,” Diana whispered.

Another slap.

“Speak louder.”

“Yes, Ms. Schelling,” Diana replied in a louder voice.

“Good. Starting tomorrow, your formal education will begin. Today, we will spend the day working on table manners. I have no doubt that your conduct at the table is disgraceful.”

Ms. Schelling pulled Diana into the hall by the arm and led her to the dining room, where the former spent the next five hours teaching the latter how to eat with a formal cutlery set. When Diana returned to the nursery at seven o’clock to go to bed, her arms were covered with red stripes from Ms. Schelling’s ruler, but she was the only three-year old who knew the difference between a dessert fork and a fish fork. The dolls, puppets, and stuffed animals that had once been in the nursery were removed as unnecessary distractions, replaced by a copy of the collected works of Seneca in the original Latin that Ms. Schelling hoped Diana would absorb by osmosis. Clutching her Seneca book, like a teddy bear, Diana cried herself to sleep.

*

“Don’t you think you’re too hard on her, Germaine?” Mr. Wolcott asked Ms. Schelling six months after her arrival at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm. The two had formed an instant kinship, because of their common plight of being both over-educated Europeans, who had unexpectedly found themselves in the service of the idle and parasitic rich.

Ms. Schelling glared at Mr. Wolcott and said, “Much as I do not comment upon your job performance, I would prefer you refrain from commenting on how I do mine.”

“She’s just a child...”

“Childhood is when you set the foundation for the rest of life. If the foundation has cracks in it, everything else falls apart, sometimes sooner than later. It was not my intention to be a surrogate mother to anyone, much less the child of bored junkie aristocrats, but now that I am in that position, I intend to use her as a test case for my own ideas about education and childbearing.”

“Which are?”

“I’ve always been an admirer of John Stuart Mills, both of his philosophy and his upbringing. She should be given a rigorous classical education combined with a general isolation from peers who may steer her away from her studies.”

Since Ms. Schelling entered Diana’s life, the girl spent the entirety of her waking hours studying. The two spent the majority of the day in a refurbished tool shed that was renovated to be a one-room schoolroom. It was sparsely furnished, with only an old fashioned desk for the student, a slightly larger desk for the teacher, and a cabinet with books and other school supplies. The only picture in the room was a large poster that contained a Puritan-era woodcut that read “The Idle Fool is Whipped at School.” Diana always regarded the poster with astonishment, since Ms. Schelling’s demanding curriculum meant that laziness wasn’t an option. There were lessons from seven thirty in the morning until eight at night, Monday through Saturday, the only interruptions being lunch at noon and dinner at six. Because of Ms. Schelling’s background as a philologist, Diana’s education involved the study of Latin, Greek, German, French, and Spanish, in addition to English. Some days, all the interactions between teacher and student would be conducted in a foreign language, or Ms. Schelling might switch from English to German mid-lecture and expect Diana to keep up with her. Diana also learned mathematics, science, and history with the same intensity that she studied language. This was her schedule, Monday though Saturday. There was no spring break or summer vacation, because Ms. Schelling considered holidays to be time wasted. Sunday was a Sabbath day of sort, and most of the day was spent in a class that her governess described as “ethics.” At first, Diana’s ethics studies consisted of Aesop’s fables and gory stories from the Bible about people who met calamitous fates for disobeying authority, the tale of how forty boys were mauled to death by she-bears for mocking the prophet Elisha being a particular favorite of Ms. Schelling. As she grew older, Diana was introduced to the ideas of the great philosophers of Western civilization, with a particular emphasis on Ms. Schelling’s favorite philosophers, the Roman Stoics and Kantian ethics. The ethics classes were not particularly conducive in teaching Diana the difference between right and wrong on a practical level, but it did help her to become the most learned individual at every cocktail party she would attend as an adult.

“Are you serious? That education nearly drove Mills mad.”

“But he recovered and was able to embark on a brilliant intellectual career,” Ms. Schelling said coolly. “We all have our crosses to bear in life, as the Christians say. If Diana’s foundation is sound, she should be able to overcome anything that happens to her.”

“She’s just a child, Germaine,” Mr. Wolcott reiterated. “You need to let her behave like one every now and then. With that attitude, I’m surprised you don’t make her call you ‘Frau Doktor’ rather than ‘Ms’...”

“Titles don’t mean anything to a three-year old. Just a simple ‘Ms’ will do for now.”

“The debauched lifestyle of Lord and Lady LaFrenz is indicative that Diana must be raised correctly to prevent her follow in her parents’ degenerate footsteps,” Ms. Schelling said. “What seems harsh to you is merely me acting in her best interests. I can’t believe that you and the other servants allowed Diana to run wild for so long.”

“There are ethical issues as to whether one should physically discipline another person’s child...”

“You were acting in loco parentis, so it was your responsibility to discipline her in some way, physically or not.”

“A burly black man trying to discipline a little blonde white girl...I shouldn’t have to tell you that that wouldn’t work.”

“You said yourself that you never see Lord or Lady LaFrenz, so what difference would it have made?” Ms. Schelling said dismissively. “If they haven’t seen their own child in three years, they obviously don’t care how or if she’s being disciplined or who’s doing it.”

While Ms. Schelling and Mr. Wolcott debated her pedagogical technique, the child at the center of their conversation wandered around outside in a rare moment of unscheduled down time. Usually, the only exercise Diana received was when she rose at six five-thirty for calisthenics and swimming, a skill she acquired after being dropped in the deep end of the estate’s indoor pool. However, Mr. Wolcott had successfully interceded on Diana’s behalf and she was granted a brief period of unstructured play away from her tutor. She was not alone, for the grounds were filled with gardeners, maintenance men, and other servants whom Ms. Schelling had deputized to keep an eye on her while they worked. With the exception of terse warnings to keep her of physical danger, they were forbidden to talk to Diana, because Ms. Schelling feared her charge might pick up coarse, working-class habits. So the girl wandered throughout her vast, eerily silent estate, with her Seneca book in one hand and a rubber ball in the other.

Ms. Schelling and Mr. Wolcott watched the child’s meanderings through the window, the former with a quiet satisfaction and the latter with cold horror.

“It’s not safe for a three-year old to be out like that, unaccompanied,” Mr. Wolcott said.

“She’s fine,” Ms. Schelling said dismissively. “The maintenance crew will make sure nothing happens. This is a fine way for her to learn how to not be emotionally dependent on me.”

“How could she possibly be emotionally dependent on you when you push her away when she tries to initiate physical contact?”

“I don’t really care for children,” Ms. Schelling said, with a shudder. “They’re dirty and unreasonable.”

“Then why did you accept this job?”

“I was told I would be teaching a ‘young lady,’ not a barbaric three-year old girl. It’s not like there are very many job opportunities for a philologist outside the university. We classicists are a dying breed, Ian. I mentioned the Judgement of Paris to a flight attendant when I was coming to America, and she thought I talking about a pornographic movie involving Paris Hilton.”

“It’s a shame,” Mr. Wolcott agreed. “In a more just world, we’d be philosopher kings like in Plato’s _Republic_.”

The two sat in silence, drinking tea, lamenting the death of classical education, and watching Diana. Mr. Wolcott’s attention was divided between the hapless child (who was bouncing a rubber ball against the side of the house) and the woman who say across from him. Ms. Schelling was not conventionally beautiful, yet Mr. Wolcott was strongly attracted to her intellectual prowess and her physical appearance. He wondered if she would object to an interracial relationship or if she consider such an attitude to be irrational.

“Well, at least Diana will know about the Judgement of Paris,” Ms. Schelling said at last. “I suppose she should come inside now. It's been almost ten minutes, and we need to get back to Latin declensions.”

“No, I think Diana needs to stay outside a bit longer,” Mr. Wolcott said eagerly. “Children that age need plenty of exercise.”

“She’ll just be tired and inattentive if she stays outside any longer,” Ms. Schelling said, observing Mr. Wolcott’s body language with a slight smirk. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“I just like spending time with you,” Mr. Wolcott said, not seeing any point in hiding his intentions. “You’re always shepherding Diana around that our chances to meet are not as frequent as I would like.”

“Workplace romances are highly illogical, Ian,” Ms. Schelling said bluntly.

“Our workplace is illogical, Germaine,” Mr. Wolcott replied. “And even if it weren’t, the fact is that most people find romantic partners at the place they spend the most time at, which is work. There would be a problem if we were at different points on the organizational hierachy of this establishment, but we’re equals.”

As Mr. Wolcott appealed to Ms. Schelling’s , the object his his affection furiously scribbled something on a paper napkin. When he finished, she pushed the napkin in his direction, with an air of cultivated disinterest.

“What is this?” Mr. Wolcott asked, examining the neatly ordered scribbles on the paper.

“Surely you’ve seen a truth table before, Ian?” Ms. Schelling sighed.

“Of course I have, but only for geometry, never about love...”

“I think if more people made truth tables when faced with an important decision, the world would be a much better place. The world would certainly be more logical.”

“So what’s your answer?” Mr. Wolcott said fervently. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen a truth table in years, and I’m not sure if I can decipher it properly.”

“Your premises were true and your form correct, therefore your conclusions are necessarily true.”

“Meaning?”

“It would be illogical not to go to bed with you.”

With , the two disappointed classicists retired to the master bedroom, which had never been used, and shut the door behind them, the sound of Diana’s ball against the side of the house reverberating throughout the empty room.

*

“Are you paying attention?”

When Diana returned from recess, she could sense that Ms. Schelling’s mood was different in some undefined way, but had no way of knowing how or why this change had happened. She never understood why Ms. Schelling asked her if she was paying attention, as the very fact that she was asking the question assumed that she wasn’t. Nevertheless, Diana replied, “Yes, Ms. Schelling.”

“What do you think about music, Diana?” asked Ms. Schelling, who was staring out the window with a somewhat dreamy expression.

“It’s a...good thing, Ms. Schelling,” Diana said, searching for what she thought might be the correct answer.

“Yes, it is, but what I mean is would you want to learn how to play an instrument?”

“If you think it’s good for me, Ms. Schelling.” Six months of near constant smacking with the ruler had broken Diana’s spirit, as it was intended to do, and her primary interest in every interaction with her tutor was to avoid getting hit.

“Good, because you start piano and violin on Monday.”

Ms. Schelling had an ulterior motive with the music lessons. Her new relationship with Mr. Wolcott necessitated that she find some time to be alone with him, which was impossible if Diana was always present, and handing off the child to another person for supplemental instruction seemed like the most logical means of accomplishing this goal.

“You’ll have another tutor, a Mr. Andrei Cherblinko. He was an accomplished musician and teacher in the USSR, but has fallen on rather hard times since the break up of the Soviet bloc.”

This information meant nothing to Diana, but she had to say something or get switched, so she said, “That’s very interesting, Ms. Schelling.”

Noticing Diana’s flailing attention at the momentary diversion, Ms. Schelling ordered her charge to return to her memorization of “mensa, mensae, mensae.” Nonetheless, as Diana worked on her declensions, she allowed herself to wonder whether music lessons – whatever that meant – would be an enjoyable diversion from the status quo as it currently stood.

*

“Greet Mr. Cherblinko,” Ms. Schelling commanded Diana upon meeting the music instructor for the first time. The group was assembled in a sitting room of sorts that contained a very dusty piano and a number of equally dusty pieces of Regency era furniture. Diana had never been in this room before, and she gaped at her surrounding absentmindedly before a slap from Ms. Schelling’s ruler on the back of her leg brought her to attention

“Good morning, Mr. Cherblinko,” Diana said in the overly formal manner in which she had taught to greet adults. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, and hope that our collaboration will be fruitful.”

The afore mentioned Mr. Cherblinko was prematurely aged, and dressed in Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses, Bermuda shorts, Panama hats, and sandals in spite of the perpetually inclement Washington weather. He noisily chewed on a toothpick in a way that caused Ms. Schelling to purse her lips in displeasure. Mr. Cherblinko looked at the unusually serious child in front of him and said, “What kind of kid talks like this?”

“A well-bred child, that's who,” Ms. Schelling said, not comprehending that Mr. Cherblinko's question was not intended as a compliment.

“We'll see about that,” Mr. Cherblinko replied. “I'll take it from here, Germaine.”

Once Ms. Schelling left the room, Mr. Cherblinko began teaching Diana the rudiments of reading music and the layout of the keyboard. To the surprise of both teacher and pupil, Diana had a natural talent for music, and readily took to her instrument instruction in a way that she didn’t in her other subjects. Although Diana was highly advanced in her academic studies, certainly more so than if she had had a more conventional upbringing, music was easy for her in a way that Latin or mathematics was not, at least not at first.

“You're doing well, kid,” Mr. Cherblinko said in between chews on his toothpick after the first month of their lessons had ended. “You're a real natural.”

“Thank you, sir,” Diana said vacantly, unsure what “a natural” was or whether that was a desirable state of being.

“Do you always have to be so robotic?” Mr. Cherblinko wanted to know.

“I don't understand what you mean, sir.”

“You never misbehave, never complain, get the exercises right on the first try; I don't know if I should be thankful for such a good student or afraid. I've taught kids in the past, and believe me, they don't act like you.”

Diana wasn't sure what to make of her teacher's assessment of her deportment, but knew she had to say something and parroted the familiar lines off the poster in the one-room schoolhouse, “The idle fool is whipped at school, sir.”

“Really? Can't say I'm surprised. That Ms. Schelling must keep a tight ship. A bit too tight, if you ask me. My old man in Ukraine was the same way, but I never missed a chance to sass him back or throw a punch in return. But a good little girl like you would never do that right?”

“No, I suppose not, sir,” Diana said, remembering how futile it had been to fight against Ms. Schelling when she first came into her life.

“You have any friends?”

“Friends, sir?”

“Other kids that you play with?”

“Sometimes the other servants bring their children for me to visit, but they think I'm strange, sir.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not really, sir. They don't even know what 'mensa, mensae, mensae, mensam, mensa' means, so there's not much to talk about.”

“I don't think many adults do either these days.” Mr. Cherblinko was about to continue his investigation into the mysterious life of his student, when Ms. Schelling abruptly came in to inform him that the lesson was over and it was time for him to leave.

Mr. Cherblinko, feeling sorry for the strange, isolated child, tried to inject some levity into Diana's otherwise joyless existence by giving her small treats and trinkets – a small toy here, a cookie or cupcake there – and by steering her towards some of the more passionate Romantic composers – Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Wagner – as means of expressing the desires that lay pent up in her confused, neglected heart. Her music lessons and Mr. Cherblinko's small acts of kindness were the only things that Diana had to look forward to in an otherwise joyless and regimented life.

In response to the repeated entreaties of Mr. Cherblinko and Mr. Wolcott, Ms. Schelling decided to institute some fun in Diana's life by allowing her to watch a movie Sunday afternoons after her ethics class. But since Ms. Schelling's idea of “fun” was radically different than that of the average person, the movies Diana was allowed to watch consisted of videos of Shakespearean plays and taped performances of operas. The latter was always watched with the subtitles off so Diana could practice her foreign language skills. As with the music lessons, Ms. Schelling had an ulterior motive to the movie screenings; she and Mr. Wolcott used the time as an excuse to make out, while their young charge watched the movie.

“Keep your eyes on the screen,” Ms. Schelling warned Diana between passionate kisses, as Diana sat on the ground about five feet in front of her, watching a video of Richard Wagner's _Götterdämmerung_.

“Yes, Ms. Schelling,” Diana said, more interested in the exploits of the hero Siegfried than whatever Ms. Schelling might be up to on the couch behind her.

Such was life for Diana LaFrenz.

 


	3. Meeting the Parents

Diana was almost five years old when she first met her parents. By this time, she had been in Ms. Schelling’s tutelage for almost two years, and Tommy was curious to learn how Diana was progressing. He and Sophie traveled to Will ‘O The Wisp Farm, despite the latter’s desire to forget that Diana Gauloises-Gitane LaFrenz even existed. Ms. Schelling and Diana met the couple in the sitting room of the main house, another room that the girl had never entered before. It resembled the interior of a Victorian-era brothel, with crushed red velvet drapes, a thick, moth-eaten red and black carpet, and garish Louis XV furniture. The sight of so much baroque kitsch in such a constructed space made Diana dizzy. Her bearings returned when she refocused her attention on two unfamiliar adults, a man and a woman who were setting on a couch that would have been too gaudy for Cleopatra. The man looked like an aged, but still attractive movie star; his hair was neatly cut and slicked back, his suit was wrinkled, but clean, his nails were freshly manicured and he sported a Van Dyke beard. The woman had beautiful, classical features that reminded Diana of the Greco-Roman statues of Aphrodite-Venus that Ms. Schelling had shown her in history class. Like Diana, the woman wore a custom-made dress from the House of Lebec, but the latter’s was haute couture, whereas the girl’s was neo-Edwardian convent style. Diana felt like she was in the presence of two statues of Greek gods, probably because the man and the woman were pale and sickly like slabs of marble. A tiny capuchin monkey wearing a pink and white pinafore sat in the woman’s lap and chattered aggressively at the new additions to the room.

“Lord and Lady LaFrenz,” Ms. Schelling said, with a grave curtsy. “I present the Lady Diana LaFrenz.”

“Isn’t she adorable?” exclaimed Tommy to Sophie, who shrugged and languidly smoked her Gitanes and rubbed Raquel’s stomach.

“What have you been learning with Ms. Schelling?” asked Tommy.

“I have been studying many different languages, mathematics, history, and music,” Diana replied, looking anxiously at the ruler that Ms. Schelling held in her hand.

“She sounds so grown-up,” Tommy said admiringly. “You’ve done a fine job, Ms. Schelling. Aren’t you glad to have such a good teacher, Diana?”

“Yes, sir,” said Diana, who watched Ms. Schelling wave a ruler about, daring her to say otherwise.

“Well, you can thank me for it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Music, sir.”

“Music? What do you play?”

“I study violin and piano, sir.”

“Do you? Isn’t she a bit young for music lessons, Ms. Schelling?”

“Not at all, Lord LaFrenz,” said Ms. Schelling. “Mozart was already composing when he was Diana’s age. Young children absorb knowledge quite easily, whether the subject and question is music or languages.”

“Ah yes, she studies all those Romance languages and such. I was total rot at languages in school. Failed Latin and French. Multiple times. But if Diana here can speak French, perhaps she can talk to Sophie. She prefers French to English.”

Noticing that Diana’s attention was drifting off as the adults talked among themselves, Tommy asked her, “Do you know who I am?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m your father!”

“If you say so, sir,” the girl replied calmly.

“And this beautiful lady here is your mother!” said Tommy, gesticulating towards Sophie, who was shocked by her sudden inclusion into the conversation. “What do you think of that?”

“Excuse me, sir,” Diana said. “I thought Ms. Schelling was my mother.” By this time, Diana couldn’t remember a period when Ms. Schelling wasn’t in her life, and assumed that her tutor was her mother because she did all of things that a mother was supposed to do, even if she wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

“Ms. Schelling?” Tommy echoed. “Don’t be silly. A child as attractive as you could never come from such a homely woman. My god, the next you’ll be telling me is that you think that burly black man is your father.”

Ms. Schelling bristled at being spoken of in such disparaging terms, while Sophie burst into tears at the reminder of her de facto state of motherhood, her half-smoked cigarette flying onto the rug.

“Are you really my mother?” Diana asked the crying woman, as Tommy hastily extinguished the cigarette.

Sophie cocked an eye brow, and said, “Parlez-vous français, s'il vous plaît.”

Diana sighed and repeated the question in French.

“ _Yes, I’m your mother_ ,” Sophie said unhappily in her native tongue.

“ _Why don’t I ever see you_?”

“ _Because Ms. Schelling looks after you_.”

“ _Why?_ ”

 " _I have to look after Raquel_.”

“ _Who’s Raquel?_ ”

“ _Raquel is the monkey I adopted_ .” Diana reached over to pet the monkey, who responded to the child’s touch with a warning screech. _“She’s like a daughter to me.”_

“ _Why do you need a monkey for a daughter if you have a real daughter?_ ”asked Diana, who was becoming confused by the woman’s answers.

 _“Monkeys are adorable and they don’t talk back._ ”

“ _Why can’t you look after Raquel and I at the same time_?”

Sophie looked at the child’s pleading face for a moment before she icily said, “ _I don’t want to be a mother._ ”

In English, Sophie said, “I wish to leave Tommy. I’ve spend enough time here.”

She retrieved the monkey (who was chewing on dusty fringes of the carpet) and sashayed out of the room, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke in her wake.

Tommy nervously glanced at Diana, as the usually restrained child’s face reddened and her eyes filled with tears. He rushed out of the room to find his wife before Diana could begin crying in earnest. The couple never visited Will ‘O The Wisp Farm again.

Left alone with the hysterical Diana, Ms. Schelling was unsure what to do. The governess’ first instinct was to beat the child for her disgraceful loss of self-control. Ms. Schelling relented when she remembered that Diana was a four year old girl who had just been told that her mother didn’t want to be a mother to her. After watching Diana scream and cry for several minutes, Ms. Schelling pulled a handkerchief out of her clutch purse and gave it to her charge.

“Take this,” said Ms. Schelling. “Once you have blown your nose and sufficiently calmed yourself, we will return to our studies. This incident will not be spoken of again.”

Ten minutes after the shocking denouement of Diana’s meeting with her parents, she was back in the little schoolroom, being switched for mixing up the perfect active subjunctive with the pluperfect active subjunctive during Latin class. For Ms. Schelling, a strict routine and hard work was the best remedy for a life’s ills, no “heart to heart” talks necessary.

*

Later that day, Diana had her music lesson, and Mr. Cherblinko could tell that something was wrong, despite the girl's best attempts to suppress her emotions.

“What's the matter, kid?” Mr. Cherblinko asked, worried that Ms. Schelling might have punished Diana in an unusually harsh manner.

“I finally saw my parents today, sir,” Diana blurted out, anxious to tell someone how she felt. “And my mother said she didn't want to be a mother to me.”

“What about your dad?” Mr. Cherblinko said, concerned about Diana and curious about the couple who signed off on his checks.

“He was just...there,” Diana replied, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Saying lots of confusing things. And then they just left.”

“To where?”

“I don't know, sir. Why don't I have a family, sir?”

"What?"

"Why don't my parents live with me and do things for me?"

"I can't answer that for you, kid. Way beyond my paygrade."

In an attempt to change the subject to something more pleasant, Mr. Cherblinko asked, “So what was the last opera you saw?”

“ _Parsifal_ , but I don't like that one,” Diana said, rolling her eyes.

“What's wrong with _Parsifal_?” Mr. Cherblinko said.

“It's boring and slow, sir,” Diana replied, feeling more energized now that she could talk at liberty about a subject that interested her. “It feels like it's just five hours of people crying and moaning in pain.”

“Well, there could be some truth to that,” Mr. Cherblinko admitted, chewing on his toothpick thoughtfully. “But in all fairness, _Parsifal_ was never meant to be seen by a five-year old. _Parsifal_ is an opera for the mature adult. More introspective. You don't understand it now, Diana, but when you get older, it will make sense. The noble fool made wise by compassion...”

Diana didn't understand how a fool could be made wise, with compassion or anything else, but she remained quiet, wishing that she was old enough to really understand _Parsifal_.

*

Undaunted by the inauspicious circumstances surrounding the introduction to his daughter, Tommy decided that Diana would vacation with Sophie and himself three or four times a year: during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays that coincided with Diana’s birthday, during the women's wear fashion week, and for two or three weeks during the summer. He made this decision because, even though he believed that being a full-time parent would hamper his shiftless lifestyle, he felt that he should have a relationship of some kind with his daughter (“It is the _decent_ thing to do, you know?” he told a disinterested crew member). The grand unveiling took place during the end of 2004, when Diana visited her parent’s ship, _Naughty Bits_ , for the first time when it was moored in San Francisco for Christmas.

“This is my ship!” Tommy said proudly, as he escorted Diana and Ms. Schelling up the gangplank. “It’s based on Aristotle Onassis’ mega-yacht, the _Christina_ , but larger. I’m not going to be outclassed by some Greek, you know. It’s got a crew of sixty and there are staterooms for three dozen guests, not to mention enough space for a couple hundred party-goers. Everything you could possibly want is here: a full bar, an outdoor dance floor and swimming pool, dining hall, music room... There’s even a library, though we don’t use it much. No point in reading when you have all this luxury. We can be out to sea for ages without ever having to come back to shore.”

“You must be very important to have such a large ship, sir,” Diana said, examining the yacht with fascination.

“I am quite well-known in my field.”

“Which is...what exactly?” asked Ms. Schelling.

“Excuse me?” said Tommy, not understanding the question.

“What do you and Lady LaFrenz do?”

“You could say we’re international celebrities. We give parties for the best people, network, have our pictures taken, share laughs...”

“In other words, you’re famous for being famous.”

“Nothing wrong with that, dear. It’s better than not being famous at all. Why don’t you go to the stateroom, Germaine? You’ll be sharing it with Diana, of course. Can’t leave a soon to be five year old all by herself, can we? It’s all decked out in the best of everything. I’ll be showing Diana around.”

“When will you be back?” Ms. Schelling asked, as she began to unpack her luggage.

“Whenever,” Tommy shrugged. “Someone will bring your dinner at some point; I’m not sure of the exact time.”

“What about Diana?”

“She’s going to dinner with me and Sophie.”

“But you just said that someone will be bringing my dinner...”

“Oh, you’re not invited,” Tommy said breezily. “I hope you won’t be offended, but you’re too much of a square for me to be seen with you. You understand, of course. Sophie even called you a ‘homely Alpine bluestocking.’ Ah, I can see you’re offended now.”

“Not at all,” Ms Schelling said, using every ounce of her Stoic resolve not to punch Tommy in the mouth. “Beauty, like intelligence, is an exclusive category. For a word like beauty to have any meaning, there must be a larger contingent of people who are not beautiful. While I may not be as physically beautiful as Lady LaFrenz, I feel that I have been amply compensated in other ways.”

Ms. Schelling was speaking about her brain, but Tommy assumed that she was speaking of another aspect of her anatomy.

“I totally agree,” Tommy said. “Your face may not be much to look at, but those legs of yours are a marvel. I said that to Sophie. That is, I said, ‘I don’t care if Ms. Schelling does have a face like a horse. I’d do any woman with a fine set of gams like that.’”

Tommy tried to put his hand up Ms. Schelling’s skirt, but she slapped his hand away before he could get any farther than the hem. Diana watched the interaction between the two adults uncomprehendingly.

“Sir, why were touching Ms. Schelling’s skirt?” Diana asked innocently.

“Yes, why _were_ you?” echoed Ms. Schelling, giving Tommy a scathing look that he hadn’t received since he left Eton College some fifty years earlier.

“Just...looking at the material,” Tommy replied lamely. “As you probably know, Sophie owns the House of LeBec fashion house, so we spend a lot of time looking at clothes.”

“And models, I’m sure,” added Ms. Schelling, backing away from Tommy before he could try anything else.

“Well, someone’s got to model to clothes, don’t they?”

“You might be interested in clothes and models, Lord LaFrenz, but don’t forget I know how to shoot.”

“You’re such a joker, Germaine,” Tommy said, half-mockingly, half-sinister. “You know immigrants can’t own guns in Washington State. If you want to shoot, you’ll have to go back to Switzerland to do it.”

“Is it appropriate to bring a child to one of your gatherings?” Ms. Schelling said, becoming increasingly suspicious of Tommy’s intentions.

“It is now,” Tommy said, anxious to get away from the sharp woman. “Say goodbye to Ms. Schelling, poppet. We’ve got a lot to do.”

“Goodbye Ms. Schelling!” Diana waved, as Tommy yanked her arm. Once father and daughter were gone, Ms. Schelling picked up the room phone and made a long distance call to Mr. Wolcott, where she proceeded to complain about the morals -- or lack thereof -- of their mutual employers.

*

Diana spent the first day of her visit being shown around the boat by Tommy, who was always glad to have an opportunity to show off his toys. Unbeknownst to Diana, she herself was one of those toys, a valuable bauble that could be put on display as an extension of his own wealth and importance. But Diana was unaware of her father’s ulterior motives, and simply delighted in receiving attention from him, and being away from Ms. Schelling.

When the night came around, Tommy gave his daughter a bombastic introduction in the ship’s dining hall to two dozen of the most useless members of the jet set crowd and one determined would-be industrialist.

“Attention everyone,” Tommy said, jumping on stage and elbowing the lead singer of the band out of the way. “There’s someone here I want you to meet. Everyone, making her first public debut is my always outrageous daughter, Lady Diana LaFrenz.” This announcement was followed by a loud shriek from Sophie, mortified that the thing she wanted to keep hidden most was being paraded around for public consumption. Unaware of the commotion that her existence was causing, Diana got up from her seat and joined her father on stage.

“How are you doing today, poppet?” Tommy asked Diana.

“Very well, sir,” Diana said confidently in spite of her anxiety about being in front of so many people. Until this point, her world was small and hermetically sealed, consisting only of herself, Ms. Schelling, Mr. Wolcott, and the other servants who populated Will ‘O The Wisp Farm. She felt exposed being in front of dozens of strange adults, many of whom were whispering about where Tommy and Sophia had been hiding their “toilet baby” all this time.

“What’ve you been up to?”

“I spend my time with Ms. Schelling, studying the classics, sir.”

“What kind of classics?”

“Nothing special... just Aesop, Virgil, Homer, Shakespeare, sir.”

“Shakespeare...He was always too difficult for me. Could never get into stories of girls on balconies, kingdoms for horses, and being and not being. Can you give us a little recitation, dear?”

“Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit  litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;  multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,  Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.” Diana replied in one long breath. The audience applauded, although Diana’s words were a mystery, as no one else knew Latin.

“Latin was never my forte, poppet,” Tommy said after this impressive display. “I never got much past Caesar’s ‘Vini, Vidi, Vici.’ What exactly was it that you just said?”

“The first lines from _The Aeneid_ , sir.”

“ _The Aeneid_...Which one was that, again?”

“Virgil’s epic poem about the mythical origins of Rome, sir. Ms. Schelling says that all educated people should have read it.” Some people in the audience laughed, because everyone knew that the only thing Tommy LaFrenz read was the “Dear Penthouse” column.

“You don’t know it in English?”

“Of course not, sir,” Diana replied scornfully. “Ms. Schelling says that reading Virgil in English is like listening to Mozart on a kazoo.”

“Enough of that poetry business,” Tommy said hastily. “What sort of math have you been learning?”

“I regret to say I have only been learning simple things, sir: multiplication tables and division, mostly.”

“Multiplication? I know I wasn’t doing multiplication at four, or much of anything, I think...What’s ten times ten?”

“One hundred, sir.”

“Twelve times fourteen?”

“One hundred sixty-eight, sir.”

“Two hundred nintey-nine time one thousand seven hundred thirteen?”

“512, 187, sir.” Gasps of awe came from the audiences, followed by applause. Diana relaxed, glad that her talents were appreciated, although she didn’t understand why a demonstration of simple multiplication should arouse so much interest. Ms. Schelling didn’t believe in calculators, at least not until trigonometry, and taught Diana to do mental math instead. Given her environment, Diana assumed that everyone did multiplication in their heads.

“I see that was too easy for you, poppet,” Tommy said, enjoying the opportunity to put on a show. “Suppose you could divide 5,265 by 75?”

“Seventy point two, sir,” Diana replied, who was beginning to enjoy being the center of attention.

“You must be feeding her the answers, you fraud” someone shouted from the audience. “No four year-old could do mental math like that.”

“Why don’t you come up here and test her yourself?” Tommy shouted back.

The challenger, a tall, bald-headed man with broad shoulders came forward to the stage and stretched Diana’s computing abilities to the limit. At the stranger man’s behest, Diana showed off her ability to do square roots, cube roots.

“She seems to be all you say she is, Tommy,” the man said, looking down at the girl with interest.

“And don’t you forget it!” Tommy shouted.

“Well, continue on with your studies, Lady Diana,” the stranger said, bypassing Tommy and talking directly to the child. “Make you sure you surpass your father, although it wouldn’t be a stretch to say you already have.”

“Thank you, sir,” Diana said, unsure of how to reply to such a statement.

“I think that’s about all, poppet,” Tommy said, once Paradim took his seat. “Take a bow, and I’ll take you back to your room.”

Diana curtsied prettily, causing the audience to clap and go “Aww” at such a precious display. The only two people who abstained from clapping were Sophie LaFrenz, who hated her daughter more than ever, Paradim, who wondered what kind of child Diana was.

*

“...and then after he insulted me he had the gall to try to put his hand up my skirt, with Diana standing not even five feet away. That man is disgusting, Ian. If nothing else, this incident illustrates why my strict pedagogy is necessary. If I do anything less stringent, Diana will end up a wastrel just like her parents. Yes, I realize now that no matter how distasteful this job is, I have a duty to...”

Ms. Schelling’s rantings were interrupted by a knock at the door. “I’ll call back,” she said to Ian. “Hopefully, someone has finally come to deliver my supper. These people have no concept of time.”

She hung up the phone and shouted, “Come in.”

Much to Mrs. Schelling’s disappointment, the person who came through the door was not a servant bearing dinner, but Sophie LaFrenz, who entered the room with a cross between a stagger and a sashay. Sophie’s eyes were red and twitching, her nostrils were encrusted with white powder, and she smelled like alcohol. Unable to remain standing up, Sophie slid down to the floor, propping herself up on the door, her legs spread apart. Raquel ran in the room and started chewing on one of Ms. Schelling’s books on Kantian ethics.

“Well, what do you want?” Ms. Schelling asked brusquely, snatching the book out of Raquel’s mouth. Undaunted, Raquel transferred her attention to another book before Sophie called her “daughter” back to her side.

“ _So you’re the person Tommy hired to look after the girl_ ?” Sophie said in French. “ _It is a girl, isn’t it_?”

“ _Yes to both questions_ ,” Ms. Schelling said, looking at her putative employer with a mixture of fear and revulsion. Ms. Schelling had led a sheltered, bourgeois life in a family where the biggest problem was deciding between attending the University of Zurich or the University of Geneva. She didn’t take drugs, didn’t associate with people who did, and if offered any, would have turned the offender over to the police. She knew intellectually that people like Lord and Lady LaFrenz existed, people whose only goal in life was to be constantly stimulated, but she never thought that she’d actually meet them, much less work for them. Having been sexually harassed by Lord LaFrenz earlier in the day, Ms. Schelling half-expected Sophie to do the same in her drunk, coked out state of mind.

“ _Your legs don’t look that great to me_ ,” Sophie said, examining Ms. Schelling with disgust.

“ _Tell your husband to keep his hands to himself or he can find a new governess_ ,” Ms. Schelling said acidly.

“ _An ugly girl like you should be thankful for any attention you get_. _I bet you’re probably one of those feminist types who doesn’t approve of a man showing a woman some attention. I’m not like that. Viva le difference...or something_.”

“ _The last thing I need is some nasty, goatish old man pawing me_.”

“ _You should consider yourself lucky that a man as handsome as Tommy LaFrenz noticed you_ ,” Sophie snapped. “ _You’ll never be able to get anything better than him_!”

“ _I find that highly unlikely, but as his wife, I realize that you aren’t an unbiased source. Well, do you have another purpose for being here other than insulting me?_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sophie said, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “ _Whatever you’re doing, stop it._ ”

“ _What do you mean_?”

“ _I mean, stop filling up Deborah..._ ”

“ _Diana_.”

“ _Whatever. Stop filling that child’s head with facts and...stuff_. _I loathe intelligent women._ ”

“ _Why do you care_ ? _You can’t even be bothered to learn her name_.”

“ _Because when she’s up like that, doing all that fancy math it makes me look stupid_.”

“ _You make yourself look stupid_ , _parading around with a monkey in a frock_. _If you didn’t want to have a child, you should have used birth control._ ”

“ _I was forty-two when Dolores showed up_ ,” Sophie wailed, ruffling through a clutch purse for a cigarette, and becoming more agitated when she realized there were none to be found. “ _When I stopped getting my period, I thought I was going through menopause._ ”

“ _I can see you aren’t concerned about sexually transmitted diseases._ ”

“ _Your know that what your problem is_ ?” Sophie slurred, changing the subject. “ _Your problem is that you don’t have a man_ . _Homely girls like you never do_. _”_

 _“How do you know if I have a man or not_?” Ms. Schelling asked, angry that Sophie kept casting aspersion on her physical appearance. She was tempted to mention her relationship with Mr. Wolcott, but she decided that nothing good could come from discussing her personal life with Sophie LaFrenz.

“ _My secondary school was full of girls like you_ ,” Sophie continued, her speech becoming increasingly incoherent. “ _Tall, homely girls with glasses who read Camus and Sartre. Fortunately, I was never like that. I loathe intelligent women. Did I say that already? Of course, you’re not really that tall, are you? Maybe taller than average, but certainly not tall enough to be a model. I was a model, you know._ ”

“ _Having a job that can be successfully performed by an inanimate plastic dummy is nothing to brag about_ ,” Ms Schelling said dismissively.

“ _You’re just jealous. Now, the key to a successful relationship is to have lots of sex. It doesn’t have to be with the same man. That way, things never get boring_. _And don’t have children. I don’t know what I’d do if Dylan was with us all the time. When she’s with you in whatever place it is that you live, it’s like she doesn’t exist.”_

“ _If you’re just going to have sex with whomever you please, what was the point of getting married_?”

 _“Just because you want to eat out sometimes doesn’t mean you don’t like what’s at home_ ,” Sophie said casually. “ _Variety makes life interesting. Tommy and I have an open marriage. Lots of people do. So what_ ? _Why are you looking at me like that_?”

“ _I’ve seen the steady stream of individuals going in and out of your quarters just today_ ,” Ms. Schelling said bluntly. “ _That’s not just an open marriage, that’s a revolving door_. _You might as well put a set of golden arches over your bed with a sign saying, ‘Billions served_.’”

“ _Are you judging me, just because I’m not some uptight Frau Doktor Hun_ ?” Sophie snapped, enraged at Ms. Schelling’s impertinence. “ _Where has that education got you_? _You spent ten, twelve years in university, and you’re just a glorified nursemaid_. _I don’t know how it works in the polyglot mess that spawned you, but in France, servants don’t talk back to their employers, and you are a servant, Germanine, don’t forget that. I don’t care how many degrees you have or where you got them from or what your daddy does; you’re no better than the Mexicans who scrub the toilets on this boat._ _I didn’t even finish secondary school and I’m an international celebrity. I’ve been a model, the muse for countless artists, had more lovers as teenager than you’ll have in your entire life, own one of the largest fashion and cosmetic firms in the world, and the most important people in the world would gouge out their eyes to be seen in my company. You only wish you could have a fraction of what I have_.”

“ _Herpes_?” Ms. Schelling said sarcastically. “ _I think not_.”

Sophie attempted to stand up, as if she wanted to strike or berate Ms. Schelling. However, she was unable to keep her balance and she toppled back to the ground. Ms. Schelling expected Sophie to sit up and respond to her insult with something equally catty, but her employer didn’t move. Ms. Schelling feared than Sophie had either overdosed or hit her head, but Sophie demonstrated that she was still in the land of the living by emitting a series of loud snores at regular intervals. Raquel pawed at Sophie to wake her up, but she was thoroughly out for the night. While Raquel tried to rouse her “mother” from her drug and alcohol induced slumber, Ms. Schelling took a permanent felt tip marker from her purse and drew a mustache, beard, cat whiskers, and an assortment of warts of various sizes on Sophie’s face, the same face that had appeared on dozens of magazine covers, inspired artists and musicians, and attracted the attention of countless men and not a few women.

Shortly after Ms. Schelling finished her masterpiece, Tommy LaFrenz barged into the room with Diana in tow. They saw Ms. Schelling sitting on her bed, daintily sipping a bowl of bouillabaisse from the tray of food a servant had given her, while Sophie LaFrenz lay passed out on the floor, unaware of her desecrated countenance. Raquel sat at Sophie’s feet, screeching and chewing on one of her custom-made shoes.

“Lady LaFrenz is sleeping, sir,” Diana said innocently.

“So she is,” said Tommy. “It looks like something’s wrong with her face...Like someone drew all over it. Do you know anything about this Germanine?”

“Someone must have drawn on her face in her intoxicated state,” Ms. Schelling replied coolly, looking Tommy straight in the eye. “She should really be more careful.”


	4. Happy Birthday, Diane!

Whatever one could say about the upbringing of Diana LaFrenz, no one could argue that she received a rigorous, albeit schizophrenic, education. The pedagogy at Will ‘O The Wisp’s one-room schoolhouse was an old-fashioned German-style liberal arts education that would not have been unfamiliar to Ms. Schelling’s heroes, Kant and Hegel. However, during those periods when she was with her parents, Diana was schooled in the multifaceted vices of the rich, beautiful, and useless. Tommy liked to trot Diana out at his parties to play violin or piano and chat about Western philosophy in German or French, and then send her back to the private suite that was reserved for her and Ms. Schelling when he tired of her presence (Sophie could hardly bear to think about Diana, much less see her; she cried incessantly a week before the girl and her governess arrived and studiously ignored her when she had the misfortune to be in her daughter’s presence). Although Diana was sent to her room before the real debauchery began, there was a pervasive element of sleaze that hung over the LaFrenzes and their “friends” even when they were on their best behavior.

Ms. Schelling had no maternal feelings for her young charge, but she did feel a duty as an educator to shield Diana from the excesses of her parents’ hedonistic lifestyle. This was a difficult task as Ms. Schelling was not allowed to be with Diana when she was with her parents - Tommy still thought that the presence of a square like Ms. Schelling would make him seem uncool and Sophie despised her in the same ontological way she hated Diana - so the best she could do was keep Diana occupied with her studies, forbid the child to leave their suite without her, and warn her to stay away from the “negative influences” that followed her parents around like fleas to a dog.

These restrictions were insufficient to shield Diana from the decadence that surrounded her parents. While it was true that the Diana didn’t understand everything that she witnessed, she was a keen observer of human behavior, especially body language, which added another dimension to her education. The girl noticed that her mother and father often had a strange white powder on their noses, and that they liked to smoke strange cigarettes that were alternatively referred to as “weed,” “grass,” and “marijuana.” When she went to the bathroom, she often saw women snorting cocaine off the counter. When the guilty parties noticed the presence of the child, some were embarrassed, others shocked, but most were too stoned/high to care. As the nights wore on, Diana noticed some people engaged in explicit displays of public affections, often in various stages of undress. When she returned to Ms. Schelling after spending time with her parents (really just Tommy, as Sophie she refused to acknowledge her existence), Diana would always be in a state of confusion. She wanted to think the best of her father – she couldn’t figure out what to think about Sophie – but everything he did contradicted what Ms. Schelling taught her, and she regarded her tutor’s word as gospel. When Diana asked Tommy for clarification about the things he did, his responses were evasive and unsatisfying.

For example, when Diana was five, she was riding in a limousine with Tommy, Sophie, and Raquel, and noticed her parents snorting cocaine.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

“Just grown-up business,” Tommy said, trying to wipe his nose inconspicuously. “Doesn’t concern you at all.”

“What kind of grown-up business?”

“It’s not important.”

“Are you doing drugs, sir?” Diana asked bluntly.

“Drugs?” Tommy echoed, trying his best to sound shocked by the accusation. “What would give you that idea, dear?”

“Ms. Schelling told me that I should stay away from people who do drugs, and that I should never accept them. She made these flashcards with different drugs on them what they do and what they look like in case someone tried to give me any.”

“Your Ms. Schelling certainly is a through one isn’t she?” Tommy said, more to himself than to Diana.

“Ms. Schelling said that people who do drugs are bad,” Diana continued. “Does that mean that you’re...bad?”

“Well...just don’t think about it, okay poppet?” He smiled roguishly at her and gave her five one hundred dollar bills. “Buy yourself something nice with this, and don’t tell Ms. Schelling.”

Diana reluctantly took the money and put it in her purse, troubled by her father’s secrecy, and by the hateful looks her mother and her monkey were giving her.

*

“And that ladies and gentlemen is why Milton is superior to Shakespeare,” Diana announced triumphantly, to the amazed guests at Tommy and Sophia’s table in the dining room on the good ship _Naughty Bits_ on New Year's Eve of 2007, which also happened to be her seventh birthday. Diana had overcome her previous shyness about talking in front of audiences since her “debut” two years ago, and had concluded that she quite liked being the center of attention for a group of fawning adults, a welcome change from Ms. Schelling's insistence that she be submissive and docile at Will O' the Wisp Farm.

“I’ve never seen such a child,” cooed a middle-aged socialite with skin the consistency of a leather purse. “ _Is_ this even a child? Tommy, are you sure this sweet little darling is really a child and not a midget?”

“Indeed, this child is a miracle,” agreed the tanorexic French model sitting at Tommy’s left side. “She knows history, music, philosophy, mathematics. Everything.”

“She’s so polite,” said a corpulent Texas oil baron that flanked Tommy’s right. “‘Yes ma’am,’ ‘No ma’am,’ ‘Yes sir,’ ‘No sir.’ A well-behaved and well-bred young lady. My sister has a daughter about Diana’s age and she can’t even get the kid to wear clothes all the time. Are you sure she’s not a midget, Tommy?”

“Yes, she’s a child, all right,” Tommy said proudly, as if he had done anything other than contribute DNA to be responsible for Diana’s remarkable intellect. “Today’s her bloody seventh birthday. Probably the smartest seven-year old in the world, isn’t that right, poppet?”

“I don’t know about that, Tommy,” Diana said modestly, sipping the sparkling cider she had been given in lieu of champagne.

“I saw this American boy on TV around Diana’s age,” said the woman blessed with the leathery face and decolletage. “He was some kind of scientific genius and created a cute little robot teddy bear that could do all kinds of tricks. Had a strange name. It was Zip or Zig or something like that.”

“It’s absolutely precious that this little boy can make a talking stuffed animal, but that hardly puts him in the company of Einstein or Bohr,” Diana said. Because she seldom received positive attention from anyone, Diana didn’t want to lose the attention of the table to a dog and pony show Ms. Leather Breasts saw on TV.

“Oh, are you jealous?” asked a washed up German action movie star, who was also seated with Tommy.

“No, I’m not jealous,” Diana insisted, as a waiter refilled her champagne flute with cider. “Only time will tell whether Zip or Zig or whatever his name is actually does anything or becomes burnt out before he’s twenty-one.”

“Diana’s not waiting until she’s grown to make her mark,” Tommy declared to his table mates. “She’s practicing with the Seattle Symphony for her professional debut in a few months. A professional musician at seven. That’s how we LaFrenzes are. We grab a chance and don’t worry about what might have been.”

“I never would have guessed that someone like you and Sophie could have such a smart child,” marveled the German actor.

“That’s because she has a private tutor,” said an Argentine polo coach. “Her intense environment overrides the genes of her useless parents.”

“Oh, we’re not that bad,” Tommy laughed. “My grandfather Thomas Perceival III was quite the scientist. A member of the Royal Academy of Science, if you please. And my brother, Michael was a whiz with machines. Besides, Sophie and I have given her something much more valuable than intelligence: naturally blond hair.”

The whole table laughed, except for Diana, who didn’t understand why hair color was more important than the pursuit of knowledge. She glanced over at the adjoining table, where Sophie was holding court, surrounded by more than a dozen male admirers, eager to ingratiate themselves into her favor.

“ _Please Sophie_ ,” urged a thin, balding fellow, speaking French with a clipped English accent. “ _Spend some more time with me. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you again for so long. If you don’t come away with me, I might have to..._ ”

“ _Oh, Richard_ ,” cooed Sophie. _“Are you really capable of..._ ”

“ _I’m capable of anything_ ,” the man Sophie called Richard said, leaning in close to her.

“ _I bet they are plenty of women who would like you just on that account_.”

“ _And to think, you are just one of those women_ ,” Richard said.

While the exchange with Richard played out, Sophie held hands with a short, stocky olive-skinned man, in a way that suggested that the two were more than friends. This man kept shooting Diana looks from across the room that made her uncomfortable, although she couldn’t articulate why. Raquel happily sat in the olive-skinned man’s lap, an unusual sight, since the monkey was aggressive towards everyone but Sophie. Diana wanted to asked Sophie why she was so familiar with men to whom she wasn’t married, but every time she tried to talk to her mother, she ran off in the opposite direction.

“ _Is that girl really your ‘toilet baby,' Sophie_?” Richard asked.

“ _She must be_ ,” said the olive-skinned man. “ _She’s so pretty. Maybe one day she will be more beautiful than Sophie._ ”

Angered by the constant reference to the child she despised, Sophie rose and said, “ _I think it’s time for Diane to go back to her rooms_.”

“ _My name is Diana, Sophie_ ,” Diana said, glad that her mother was finally acknowledging her existence, even if it was to tell her to go away. Sophie shrugged and pulled out a cigarette from a gaudy diamond studded case.

“I’ll take you back,” Tommy said to Diana, who was getting up to leave. “Sophie, you can keep everyone entertained for a bit, can’t you? You’re already doing a fine job with your boys over there.”

Sophie gave her husband a withering stare, but remained silent, as her olive-skinned companion lit her cigarette, and her “boys” continued fighting for her attention. When it became evident that their hostess was not going to provide any conversation, Ms. Leather Breasts related an anecdote about the doctor who performed her last face lift.

*

“Happy Birthday, Diane!” Tommy said thrusting an antique violin case into Diana’s uncomprehending arms when the two of them were in the suite the child shared with her governess. Ms. Schelling sat on a nearby couch, examining the gift critically.

“Her name is Diana, Lord LaFrenz,” Ms. Schelling reminded Tommy.

“Well, Diane’s jolly close, isn’t it? Isn’t this a grand fiddle? And you have me to thank for it! I won it in a card game.”

“Why would anyone bet a Stradivarius in a poker game?” inquired Ms. Schelling, her voice saturated with disapproval, both at the use of the word “fiddle” and the idea of obtaining a precious instrument in such an unorthodox manner.

“It was very high stakes poker. None of this rinky-dink pool room business. The previous owner was a _devilish_ looking fellow. Didn’t look like the musician type at all. I lost an awful lot of money, but I managed to get this fine instrument. Since I don’t play violin myself - I’m not the musical sort - I thought you could make some good use out of it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Diana replied, unsure of what to make of her father’s bizarre story.

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ poppet. Call me Tommy.”

“Why can’t I call you some variation on ‘father’?”

“Tommy’s fine,” the lord said nervously. “Better to keep everything consistent, you know.”

“Is this violin the _Le Maurien Stradivarius_ , which was stolen five years ago in New York City?” asked Ms. Schelling.

“How should I know?” Tommy snapped. “I’m no appraiser. Interesting things show up in the strangest places. If it is stolen - and I’m not saying that it is - I had nothing to do with it and no knowledge of it.”

“I think this instrument is too large for me, Tommy,” Diana said, oblivious to the fact that she could be in possession of stolen merchandise.

“Well, you’ll grow into it, won’t you? My gosh, you’re growing up so much.”

There was an awkward silence, as Diana continued to examine her birthday present, and the two adults exchanged suspicious looks.

“Do you want some ice cream?” Tommy said abruptly. “Can’t have a birthday without ice cream.”

“I don’t approve of Diana eating sweets between meals,” Ms. Schelling announced.

“If you can’t eat sweets on your birthday, when can you?” shouted Tommy, whisking Diana out of the suite before her governess could object. “We’ll be back soon.”

Tommy took Diana’s hand and escorted her down to the ship’s bar, a cavernous, windowless throwback to the 1970s decorated with gaudy animal prints and fake wood paneling. Since the other guests were in the dining room, the bar was empty, save for a disinterested bartender watching soccer on a portable TV.

“Ike, turn off that TV for a moment,” said Tommy. “Prepare a double banana split for me and my daughter to share.”

“You have a daughter, sir?” said Isaac the bartender, looking at Diana with astonishment.

“Of course,” said Tommy. “Doesn’t everybody these days? Sit at the bar, Diana, while Isaac makes our ice cream.”

“Ms. Schelling says that I shouldn’t go in saloons, bars, or taverns,” Diana said.

“This isn’t a ‘bar,’ love,” Tommy reassured her. “It’s more of a...lounge. And you can’t go wrong with our man Isaac. You know why I hired Ike? We just hired him, by the way, but do you know why I hired him?”

“No sir.”

“I hired him because he looked lsaac the bartender on _The Love Boat_.”

When Diana looked back at him in confusion, Tommy added, “I suppose _The Love Boat_ is a bit before your time, isn’t it poppet?”

“I...guess so, Tommy,” Diana replied, who knew nothing about conventional television.

“Well, it’s a TV show about a cruise ship with lots of hijinks and romance. I really like the theme song. You don’t see that kind of things on TV these days. Very tragic. Everyone’s got to be ‘artsy’ these days.” To illustrate his point, Tommy went to the karaoke machine next to the bar and serenaded Diana with the theme song to _The Love Boat_.

Diana flushed with excitement during Tommy’s performance. Tommy’s singing voice was merely adequate, but that didn’t matter because he was an expert in knowing how to charm an audience and Diana was no exception. She didn’t care about the song itself, which paled in comparison to the classical music she was exposed to at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm. The only thing that mattered was that her father was singing to her and only her on her birthday. A song about love and promises and not being hurt, that, even if it wasn’t phrased as poetically as Franz Schubert’s _Winterreise_ , was exactly the kind of message that she wanted to hear.

After Tommy finished his performance, Isaac brought out the banana split, and the father and daughter began to celebrate her birthday in earnest. As they devoured the ice cream, Tommy regaled Diana with a heavily censored account of his life, including stories of the boarding schools he was expelled from, his travels on India’s “hippie trail” in the 1960s, his brief career managing psychedelic rock bands in San Francisco, and the nights he spent partying at Studio 54 with Bianca Jagger and Liza Minnelli. None of these stories meant anything to Diana, who was completely ignorant of popular culture and of any historical event that happened after 1945, but she enjoyed learning about her father.

“Why did you get expelled from all those schools, sir?” Diana wanted to know.

“I’m not really the academic sort, unlike your Ms. Schelling.”

“Ms. Schelling says that unless you have a university degree, you’ll be condemned to the dirtiest and noisiest jobs in the legitimate economy.”

“I have wealth coming from an...independent source,” Tommy said evasively. The response was filtered through a mouthful of ice cream, causing Diana to miss the last two words of her father’s explanation.

“What do you do for a living, sir?”

“Why, I’ve done loads of things over the years. I managed rock groups and clubs for awhile, I had racehorses, raced yachts, traveled all over the world...”

“But what do you _do_?” Diana pressed. “For example, Ms. Schelling is a tutor, Mr. Wolcott is a butler, Mr. Ike is a bartender...”

“Look here, at these photos I’ve got in this satchel,” Tommy interrupted, unable to justify his idle lifestyle. “I think you’ll find them jolly interesting.”

“Why don’t you have the same nose that you have in this picture?” Diana asked, pointing at a photograph of a rakish-looking Tommy when he was a fourteen-year old schoolboy at Eton.

“Got my nose broken at Altamont by Hell’s Angels. Tragic event, that was.”

“What’s ‘Altamont’? Is it a mountain?”

“No, it was a music festival that got out of hand. Births, deaths, auto theft, drownings. You name it, it happened.”

“Like the premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet _Le sacre du printemps?_ ”

“Uh, sure. Look, these are some pictures of Whigyby Hall, where I was born. It’s the LaFrenz ancestral seat. And these are of my younger siblings Michael and Daphne. You can see we’re all a tall, blonde, Viking-ish lot. I guess that comes from having a Swedish mother.”

“Your mother is Swedish?”

“ _Was,_ darling. She’s been dead for about ten years. Hell of a thing when you have to find out from a website that your own mother died...”

“Can I see Aunt Daphne and Uncle Michael?” Diana asked, intrigued about the possibility of having a normal family life.

“Afraid you can’t, dear. Both dead. Very tragic.”

“What happened?”

“Daphne got herself into a love affair with an Irish Catholic plumber. The very fellow who installed the indoor plumbing at Whigby Hall. Was hellbent on marriage. Even said she was going to convert to Romanism. Of course, my father, a devilishly conservative fellow didn’t approve of that and said he was going to disinherit her if she insisted on marrying the guy. Well, she didn’t want to choose between her father and her lover, so she and her plumber did one of those murder-suicide things. Jumped out of a window of a London hotel together. Very over-dramatic, don’t you think? Not like there aren’t plenty of other fish in the sea, as they say, and God knows she was beautiful enough to catch someone much better than an Irish plumber.”

“That sounds like an opera plotline, sir,” Diana observed.

“Yes, it is a rather operatic tale, isn’t it? That was back in ’70. Then there’s Michael, who got all the brains in the family. Started up an engineering firm called LF Tech that invents all sorts of things. Made so much money with that that he ended up saving Whigby Hall when the taxes got all crazy with the landed estates in the 1960s. But he died back in 1997 when an experimental car he was driving crashed. Hardly anything left of him. Burnt to a crisp, you might say. So now I’m the only one left. Just me and the Commodore now.”

“Who’s the Commodore?”

“My father, the current Earl of Grimlyshire.”

“Can I see the Commodore?”

“Well, the thing of it is, is that my father and I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms for a jolly long time,” Tommy said nervously. “He’s always been on me about producing an heir, but I don’t think a girl is what he had in mind. The Commodore is _devilishly_ conservative, you know. Did I just say that?”

“But I’m not saying you’ll _never_ meet,” Tommy added, noticing Diana’s disappointment. “You never know what the future holds, of course.” He failed to mention that because of his estrangement from his elderly father, the Commodore didn’t know Diana existed.

“Why can’t I live with you all the time?” Diana pressed, trying to scoop up the last bits of melted ice cream from the bottom of the dish.

“You mean you don’t like learning things with Ms. Schelling?”

“She hits me for no reason.”

“A few good whacks won’t do you any harm. Got hit all the time as a young scrapper. Especially at Eton. They didn’t spare the rod _there_ , I can tell you that. But it opened me up to a world of interesting possibilities in the bedroom...”

“Isn’t it the norm for children to be raised by their parents?” Diana interrupted, uninterested in the enlightenment her father had discovered via corporal punishment.

“Aristocrats often leave their children in the care of nannies and nurses. Besides, our lifestyle can’t accommodate a child. Much better for you to stay with Ms. Schelling. Very educated lady. Shame about her inability to get a job, but I’ve always believed that a 9 to 5 job is for suckers anyway.”

When it became clear to Diana that her father had no intention of liberating her from Ms. Schelling’s company, Diana changed the topic and asked, “How did you and Lady LaFrenz meet?”

“It was about fifteen years ago, when I was into the London rave scene. First time I’d been back to old Britannia since the 1960s. We were both at the same underground club. A very exclusive event, you understand. Not a bunch of rabble from the universities. I was having a rough time. Running out of money, debt up to my eyebrows, creditors knocking on my door. Nearly lost my shirt.”

“Why?”

“You know how it is. Bad investments, giving people loans that they never pay back, betting on the ponies, poker games that didn’t pan out. You know how it is. All that changed when I met Sophie. We hit it off immediately, probably because we happened to share the same interests...”

“Such as?”

“That’s not important,” said Tommy hastily, not wanting to explain to his seven-year old daughter that most of her parents’ interests were considered illegal and/or immoral in most countries. “Not only did I get a swell wife, but she paid off all my debts. That’s love right there, baby. Of course, I was married several other times before, but this is different.”

“To whom, sir?”

“Well, first there was Genevieve ‘Jenny’ Todd, a groupie I met at a Jefferson Airplane concert. See, here’re some pictures of her, right here.”

“She’s very pretty, sir,” Diana said, looking at the photographs of a younger, hairier Tommy with a girl in her late teens or early twenties with strawberry blond hair. The two made an attractive couple, despite being covered in grime and wilted flowers. Diana also noticed that the two were often pictured in the nude, a fact that puzzled her.

“We all called her ‘Hot Toddy.’ Great nickname, isn’t it? Fascinating girl, she could do the most amazing things with her tongue, but she got bored with me. Can you believe it? _She_ was bored with _me_! And she left me to become the wife of some uptight Republican politician and got all involved in that religious right nonsense. All about ‘saving the children’ from pornography, homosexuality, premarital sex, and everything else that makes life fun. I can’t explain it. That was wife number one. Number two was a German conceptual artist I met at an ashram in India. Didn’t have a name, at least not one that I’m aware of. Just went by an unpronounceable symbol that looked like a toothbrush. She did it long before Prince decided to do it in the 90s.”

“The Prince of what, sir?” asked Diana.

“Prince is an R&B singer. Before your time, but terribly fascinating, that one is. Anyway, number two was a real trailblazer. But she didn’t have much money, and I’m a high maintenance sort of fellow. I won’t lie, poppet; I like the high life. My dear ‘Hot Toddy’ was an heiress of some kind, so she could always dip into her trust fund, but number two didn’t have a thing. The war wiped her parents out. Terrible tragedy, you know, but the Germans seem to do that every now and then and they only have themselves to blame. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since number two didn’t approve of ‘bourgeois materialism.’ Naturally, I couldn’t live like that, so I dropped her. What was I supposed to do? Number three is our own Sophie Lebec. Far superior than the other two. Beautiful, rich, and completely uninhibited. It’s a shame I wasted time on numbers one and two, but I suppose it couldn’t be helped. Found out later that she was at Studio 54 at the same time I was, but we never hooked up. Now that’s a shame. As charming as she is now, I can only imagine what she must have been like as a teenage nymphette. She’s twelve years younger than myself, you know. Of course there were other women coming in and out of the picture, but those are just the ones I married.”

“What do you mean by ‘coming in and out of the picture,’ sir?”

“Well, you know, I’ve always been popular, always enjoyed the company of beautiful women, but that didn’t mean I had any intention of _marrying_ them. I’m not even sure why I married numbers one and two sometimes. When you think about it, marriage is so bourgeois, something my father would do. Who needs a piece of paper from the government to regulate how you feel?”

“Ms. Schelling says that it’s in the interest of the state to encourage the production of citizens for the continued maintenance of society, and that it’s not conducive to have lots of ill-bred children running around with no clear sense of parentage,” Diana said, anxious to enlighten her father with Ms. Schelling’s words of wisdom.

“Hmm, that seems like something she’d say. Probably some truth to that. Somebody’s got to be respectable and keep the lights going, I suppose. But I’ve always considered myself to be outside of society. A transgressive personality, if you will.”

“If you have these other marriages, do you have any other children, sir?”

“Children? God, I hope not. If I do I don’t know about them.”

“I think I’d like a brother or sister, sir,” Diana said.

“Another? One’s more than enough” said Tommy, mortified at the idea of becoming a father again, when he had never wanted to be one in the first place. However, when he saw Diana’s crushed expression, Tommy added, “That is to say, why would I need any other children, when I have you, poppet? Could you imagine Ms. Schelling taking care of a baby? No, I don’t think so. It’s really too absurd to contemplate.”

Diana smiled with relief and Tommy relaxed, glad to see that he was restored in her eyes. Tommy knew he was a lousy father, and didn’t care about his daughter as much as he ought to, but had a pathological need for people to like him.

“How come I never see Sophie?” Diana asked.

“She’s...busy.”

“Why was she kissing and holding hands with other men in the dining room, sir?”

“She’s very popular. Men like to be around her in the same way that women like to be around me.”

“Ms. Schelling says that you’re not supposed to do those kinds of things if you’re married to someone else, sir.”

“Why is Ms. Schelling talking about these things with a seven year-old?” Tommy said, exasperated that he was being lectured about morality by a child.

“She said it was important that I understand these things, so when I’m exposed to negative influences I won’t be confused.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Tommy admitted. Tommy may have considered himself to be a “transgressive personality,” but he didn’t want Diana to become one. Rather, he imagined that her rigorous upbringing would enable her to win a Nobel Prize in something (he wasn’t particular about what), which would then cause everyone to marvel at his parenting skills.

“Where is Sophie now?” Diana asked.

“Probably smoking. She does love those Gauloises.”

“Gauloises? That’s the same as my middle name.”

“Yes, sweetheart. That’s where I got the inspiration.”

“Ms. Schelling says that smoking is a dirty, nasty habit and if you get cancer from it, it’s your own fault.”

“Your Ms. Schelling certainly is the judgmental sort, isn’t she?” lamented Tommy, wondering if he made a mistake in choosing a secular Puritan for his daughter’s tutor.

“Why doesn’t Sophie want to be a mother?”

“Some women just aren’t cut out for it.”

“Then why did she have me?”

“These things just happen sometimes, poppet.”

“That’s not what Ms. Schelling said. She said...”

“I can imagine what Ms. Schelling said,” Tommy said. He wished that Diana would shut up about Ms. Schelling, but concluded that it was inevitable, given that she was the biggest influence in her life.

“Why does Sophie prefer that monkey to me?” Diana asked, trying to figure out why she was named after a brand of cigarette.

“No clue, poppet. Frankly, between you and me, I don’t like Raquel that much myself.”

This last comment caused Diana to giggle in a childlike manner that would have earned her a switching from Ms. Schelling, had that formidable lady been present.

“Oh, you don’t care for Raquel, Tommy?”

Diana turned and saw Sophie standing akimbo in the doorf rame of the bar, looking at the sight of the father-daughter bonding like she was witnessing the convention of a couple of thieves. Raquel was perched on Sophie’s shoulder in a flowered pinafore, eating what appeared to be a peach.

“Well, it is a bit strange to have a monkey in a frock, isn’t it?” Tommy said, his pale hands idly twisting his napkin around.

“If I choose to put Raquel in a frock, what business is it of yours?” Sophie said, condescending to speak in English to her monolingual husband.

“I do have to live with you and Raquel, don’t I?” Tommy said, his voice tinged with anger.

“Why are you with _her_?” said Sophie, looking at her child with undisguised contempt. The “her” in question smiled innocently at her mother, and Raquel, sensing the tension in the room, began chattering.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Tommy replied with a defeated look. “It is her birthday and I am her father.”

“The guests are starting to arrive for the soiree, Tommy,” said Sophie as she turned to leave the bar. “I expect you to be upstairs in less than five minutes for you to greet them. Do you understand?”

Unwilling to argue with his wife, Tommy said, “Diane...err _Diana_ , why don’t you go with Ms. Schelling? She’s probably waiting for you in your room. I have to go attend to some business.”

“Yes, Tommy,” Diana replied. “I had a great birthday.” Diana impulsively gave her father a peck on the cheek and breezed past Sophie and Raquel, both of whom looked like they wanted to throttle the her.

*

Five hours after the end of her ice cream date with Tommy, Diana lay in bed listening to the constant thud of a pounding bass beat. The music was so loud that Diana could clearly make out all the words to the song, which based on the refrain, was “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Ms. Schelling, a hard sleeper, was oblivious to the noise, and snored loudly in the adjoining bed. As the daughter of the owners of the boat, Diana assumed that she had enough authority to tell whoever was playing the music to turn it down. She rose from her bed, took the key to the room from Ms. Schelling’s nightstand, and unlocked the door. Once Diana was outside, she put the key loop around her neck, and headed towards the main ballroom. Ordinarily, Diana wouldn’t dare disobey her governess in such a brazen manner, but her meeting with her father made her feel like anything was possible. As Diana cautiously made her way through the labyrinthine system of halls, she wondered if she should have changed out of her old-fashioned nightgown and into some regular clothes, as Ms. Schelling disapproved of pajamas being worn outside of the bedroom. Acting under the assumption that she would only be gone for a few minutes, Diana continued her trek, barefoot and under dressed. Diana walked into the ballroom, with the full intention of announcing her displeasure at the tumult to the assembled, but was silenced by the action that unfolded before her.

Although the ballroom was dark, Diana could ascertain the presence of a large group of people. The only light in the room was a disco ball and a throbbing strobe light that made the figures in room seem like three-dimensional shadow puppets moving in slow motion. Flashes of colored light illuminated the room at regular intervals, revealing an orgy already in progress. Diana spied her mother grinding against an anonymous man, while Tommy leered from afar with two buxom women draped across his shirtless form. Raquel the monkey was dancing in the DJ’s booth, wearing a new floral pinafore.

Frightened and confused by the bacchanalia, Diana retreated from the ballroom, and hurried back to her suite. Before she could get more than two yards down the hall, a man came up from behind her and grabbed her, restraining her at the waist with one arm and covering her month with the other.

“You’re Sophie’s ‘toilet baby,’ no?” whispered a raspy, French-accented voice.

Diana had heard the term “toilet baby” bandied about in reference to her mother, but she had no idea that it referred to herself, and didn’t understand what it meant. Rather than respond to the man’s question, Diana tried to mule kick the man’s lower body.

“You must be,” the man continued, rearranging himself to avoid his victim’s futile attacks. “You look just like Sophie. Maybe even more beautiful. Do you like to ‘party’ like your mother?”

Diana tried to break away, but the man was too strong for her seven-year old body to repel. He dragged her into an open storage room a short distance away from the ballroom.

“You’re so grown-up, not like a child at all,” the man whispered again. “It won’t hurt.”

Diana felt the man push his thick, coarse hand inside her nightgown. Her body went limp from fear, and her mind was filled with the cautionary stories from her ethics classes. She recalled the oft-repeated story of the boys being mauled by the she-bears for mocking the prophet Elisha. _Am I being punished for disobeying Ms. Schelling?_ Diana thought. Before the stranger could violate her underwear, Diana was unexpectedly freed by another man, who snatched the girl out of the clutches of the first.


	5. Mr. Paradim Saves the Day

Lewis Leon Paradim, the only one of Tommy and Sophia’s “friends” who abstained from the orgy, wandered out of the seldom used ship’s library where he had been working on some contracts. He wondered why he kept coming to these events, as the RM Corp was financially stable enough for him to not have to continue begging for capital from the parasitic aristocracy. People of power and importance occasionally appeared at Tommy and Sophia’s functions, but the couple preferred the company of athletes, models, entertainers, trust fund babies, and other non-entities, limiting the opportunities for the kind of networking that Paradim needed. Like Diana LaFrenz, Paradim was disturbed by the incessant noise coming from the ballroom, which reverberated throughout the ship. Unable to concentrate on his work, Paradim decided to go to the bar for a rum and Coca Cola to soothe his nerves. As Paradim approached the halls near the ballroom, he saw a little girl dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown being dragged into a darken corridor.

Although Paradim tended to be indifferent to the suffering of others, child molestation was a sin that even he thought was disgusting. He forcibly removed the child from the arms of her abductor, an easy task given that the would-be predator was a head shorter than Paradim, and considerably less muscular. With his plans in shambles, the guilty party tried to flee the scene, but Paradim tripped him before he could escape. Before the girl’s attacker could return to his feet, Paradim put her on the other side of the wall near the storage closet, and began pummeling him.

“Not so tough, are you?” Paradim jeered. “It’s much harder fighting against a real man rather than a little girl, isn’t it?”

“Stop!” cried the attacker turned victim, trying to protect his head from Paradim’s blows. “I give up!”

“Are you sure?” Paradim whispered, putting his hands around the man’s neck.

“Yes!” the man gasped. “Have mercy on me. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“I find you in a darkened closet with your hand up a little girl’s nightgown and you have the audacity to claim that you didn’t know what you were doing?”

“I was going to the john and I saw this girl who was so beautiful walking through the halls and I just had to...”

“Just had to what? Don’t say you thought she was eighteen, because that child can’t be more than ten. Who are you?”

“Antoine Ducheval...”

“Antoine Ducheval? The Antoine Ducheval that’s CEO of the Grande Agro conglomerate?”

“You can’t let anyone know about this. I’ll be ruined. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose my family. I can’t go to jail...”

“What’s going on?” Paradim turned around to see Tommy standing in the hallway, still shirtless, his fake tan giving off a faint glow amid the darkness. He was accompanied by a disheveled-looking Sophie, with Raquel running around her mistress’ bare feet.

“Why do you care?” Paradim said dismissively.

“I heard someone screaming, and... Oh God, Paradim! What have you done to that man?”

Paradim smirked and grabbed Mr. Ducheval by his shirt and deposited him in front of Tommy.

“One of your ‘friends’ tried to molest your daughter. I assume it was your daughter, because no one else would be stupid enough to bring a child to a place like this.”

The girl in question emerged from behind the wall in which she had been hiding and instinctively ran to her parents for support. She tried to embrace Tommy’s greasy, orange frame, but he shrank back from her and hid behind his wife and her monkey.

“Tommy?” Diana pleaded. “Why didn’t you come help me?”

“I didn’t know you were in any trouble, poppet,” Tommy said lamely, looking to Sophie to tell him what he ought to say. “He - that is Antoine - didn’t really do anything, did he? He always seemed like a decent sort...”

“He tried to put his hand in my underwear.”

“You... did... tried to what?” Tommy babbled, his distress mangling his speech.

“‘ _Tried’ is not the same thing as ‘did,’ is it_ ?” an indifferent Sophie said in French to Diana. “ _Why were you even out of your room at this hour_ ? _Were you deliberating seeking out Antoine_ ? _Do you have some kind of schoolgirl crush on him_?”

“ _What_ ?” Diana replied, shocked that her mother would imply that she had any kind of interest, sexual or otherwise, in her attacker. “ _I’ve never seen this man before. The loud music in the ballroom woke me up, and I wanted to tell the DJ to turn it down, and I saw you were doing indecent things with these other people_...”

Sophie slapped Diana before the girl could finish her rambling defense of her activities.

“ _I will thank you to not refer to my activities as ‘indecent’ when you are roaming the halls at night by yourself_ ,” Sophie said haughtily. “ _Any child who is up this late is obvious up to no good_. _Antoine is like a brother to me. We grew up together, went to the same schools, and is one of my closest confidants. I won’t have you slandering him with your wild accusations. Now you’d better get out of my sight or I’ll give you something to cry about._ ”

French was not Paradim’s forte, but he knew enough to follow the short conversation, and was amazed at Sophie’s conduct, especially when she helped the injured Antoine Ducheval to his feet and then helped him to walk. Mr. Ducheval smirked triumphantly at Paradim through his black eyes, bloody nose, and bruised torso.

“ _Let’s party again_ ,” Ducheval whispered to Diana in French, accompanied by fake kissing noises. Frightened, Diana ran behind Paradim’s large, comforting figure.

In English, Sophie added, “Come along, Tommy. I’m going to drop Antoine at his room and then I’m retiring to our quarters.”

“What about Diana?” Tommy said, looking back and forth between his stricken daughter and the retreating form of his wife.

“What about her? As for you, Mr. Paradim, I hope this will be the last time we meet. You are disagreeable, unsocial, and violent.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Paradim replied sarcastically. “ _Lady_ LaFrenz.”

Tommy walked a few steps towards Diana, as if he wanted to say something, but turned and fled, leaving Diana and Paradim alone.

Abandoned by the father who had showered attention on her hours earlier, Diana was overwhelmed by a perfect storm of shame, confusion, and fear. She ran to a startled Mr. Paradim and collapsed in his arms, crying not only about her brush with perversion, but of all the pain, loneliness, and disappointment that Ms. Schelling’s educational methods forced her to suppress. Paradim was not enthusiastic about hugging, but even he felt sorry for the child who was unlucky enough to have Tommy and Sophie LaFrenz for parents. As Diana wept and screamed, the other orgy participants trickled out of the ballroom, complaining about the premature end to their fun, ignoring the distress of the child who was crying a few feet away from them.

After crying for more than ten minutes, Diana withdrew from Paradim and said, “Thank you for rescuing me, Mr...”

“Lewis Leon Paradim,” Paradim said, relieved to be freed from the involuntary embrace.

“I’m sorry for making a scene, Mr. Paradim. My loss of self-control was disgraceful.”

“Your reaction was quite reasonable. I would have been more surprised if you hadn’t cried.”

“Ms. Schelling says that I should remember the teachings of Seneca: ‘Scorn pain; it will either be relieved or relieve you.’ There’s nothing that I can do about the past or my parents conduct towards me, yet these things continue to trouble me. It is entirely irrational.”

“Who is Ms. Schelling?” Paradim asked, wondering what kind of child quoted Seneca.

“Ms. Schelling is my tutor, Mr. Paradim.”

“Tell Ms. Schelling that this isn’t an appropriate place for children. Or any rational thinking person.”

“We - that is, Ms. Schelling and I - usually live at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm, Mr. Paradim,” Diana replied, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. “Tommy requests that I visit him about three times a year, sir. Since he pays Ms. Schelling’s salary she has no choice but to obey.”

“Quite right,” Paradim agreed.

“Mr. Paradim,” Diana began hesitantly. “Why weren’t you doing...what those other people were doing?”

“I consider myself to be a solitary figure. Prior to my intervention in your...situation, I was working on some contracts in the ship’s library, a room that seldom gets much foot traffic. A man of my stature has to network with people of importance, even if I don’t respect them, and you can be sure that I do not respect those individuals in the ballroom. There are certain political and social ambitions that I wish to accomplish in this life, ambitions that will remain unfulfilled if I get embroiled in a pointless and entirely avoidable scandal.”

“Do you network with my parents, Mr. Paradim?”

“I have, in the past. When I was starting my company, I asked your father to provide some seed capital in return for stock options.”

“How did you meet him?”

“My father used to be a colleague of his brother, Michael.”

“You knew Uncle Michael?” Diana asked, perking up at the mention for one of her deceased family members.

“Yes. He had a brilliant mind for business and science. His death was most unfortunate. Michael LaFrenz was one of the few people I respected.”

“Do you respect me, Mr. Paradim?” The pleading in Diana’s voice made an unexpected impact upon Paradim’s normal indifference to the sufferings of others. Accompanying Paradim’s sympathy was speculation whether this brilliant but emotionally needy child might be useful to him in the future.

“How can I not respect the smartest little girl in the world?” answered Paradim, deciding that it was never too early to start cultivating a possible ally. “I’ll take you back to room.”

“I don’t want to go...Not yet. I can’t go back until I know I’m settled. I can’t let Ms. Schelling know about this. She’ll be angry.”

“You can’t stay here,” Paradim said, watching the orgy participants in various stages of undress wandering around the halls. “You can stay with me, until you feel ready to go to your own room.”

Paradim carried Diana in his arms to her suite in a comforting, paternal manner that soothed her myriad fears and anxieties.

“Why didn’t Tommy rescue me?” said Diana, snuggling into her protector’s smoking jacket.

“He claimed he was busy and didn’t know what was happening.”

“I saw him in the room with those other people. They were naked and rubbing up against each other. Sophie and Tommy were both with people with whom they weren’t married. Of course, I’ve seen them do it before, just not naked. Ms. Schelling says that’s adultery, which is when a someone in the state of matrimony engages in carnal activities with a person outside the bonds of marriage.”

“What do you think the phrase ‘carnal activities’ means?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Diana confessed. She knew about relations between men and women from classic works of literature, such as _The Aeneid_ , _Metamorpheses_ , and _David Copperfield_ , although she didn’t understand how these irrational feelings - for Ms. Schelling always emphasized the irrationality of romance - related to the eggs, sperm, zygotes, embryos, and the other curious organisms that peopled Ms. Schelling’s science lectures.

Paradim opened the door to his stateroom with his free hand, and placed Diana on the floor.

“Sit at the writing desk, while I prepare you a snack,” Paradim said, noticing how comfortable Diana was around him, although they had only met twenty minutes ago.

“Weren’t you ever taught not to talk to strangers?” Paradim asked Diana.

“Of course not, sir,” Diana replied, like he had said the stupidest thing imaginable. “All I do around here is talk to strangers. It wouldn’t be very polite to not to speak when spoken to.”

“I suppose not,” Paradim agreed, looking through the minibar for some child-friendly food and beverages. He found a bottle of mineral water and a bag of chips, and placed them on the table. Diana drank the water greedily, but eyed the chips warily.

“Something wrong?” Paradim asked.

“Ms. Schelling doesn’t let me eat these, sir,” Diana replied solemnly. “She says chips aren’t even real food.”

“It’s your birthday isn’t it? You should be allowed to have some junk food at least once a year. It’ll be okay.”

“Do you have a fork, sir?”

“You don’t eat chips with a fork. I don’t even think it’s possible.”

“Ms. Schelling says I shouldn’t eat without a fork, unless I’m eating Asian food that requires chopsticks.”

“I repeat: you don’t eat chips with a fork. Ever.”

Diana opened the foil bag hesitatingly, and took one chip out of the bag, looking around like she expected Ms. Schelling to suddenly materialize and smack her for consuming forbidden food and for eating with her hands. She nibbled tentatively at one end of the chip, and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth after discovering that chips were delicious, whether they were food or not.

“Sophie said that I shouldn’t criticize her, because I was awake myself,” Diana said, between chews. “What do you think, Mr. Paradim?”

“What you were doing and what your mother was doing are not comparable. You were a child who wanted a peaceful night’s sleep, and it was only logical that you would try to find the source of your discomfort. What your mother was doing, we need not speculate about.”

“Do you think I was being punished, sir?” Diana asked, folding up the empty chip bag and putting it in the pocket of her nightgown.

“No,” replied Paradim, thinking Diana was referring to Sophie slapping her.

“I disobeyed Ms. Schelling, who is my rightfully appointed guardian, sir,” Diana cried, as she recalled her transgression. “She told me not to leave the room without her and I did, sir. That’s why that man attacked me. It’s like the forty boys and the she-bears.”

“I don’t know anything about your Ms. Schelling or these she-bears,” said Paradim, sitting at the other end of the table. “But it should be obvious to someone as smart as you are that the only reason you were attacked was because Antoine Ducheval is a pervert and your parents are idiots. Do you object to me saying that?”

“No, sir,” Diana said, wondering if being an idiot necessarily prevented one from being a good parent.

“You should be going back to your room,” Paradim said.

“I don’t want to go back, sir,” Diana cried. “What if that man comes back for me?”

“You don’t think Ms. Schelling will protect you?”

“Maybe if we were back at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm, but Ms. Schelling doesn’t have her gun here, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ms. Schelling likes to shoot, sir. She won a lot of shooting trophies in Switzerland, but she couldn’t bring them to America. Mr. King, the groundskeeper lets her use his guns, though.”

Diana regaled Paradim with tales of Ms. Schelling, Mr. Wolcott, Mr. Cherblinko, what she studied in the one-room schoolhouse, her favorite operas ( _Lohengrin_ and the _Ring Cycle_ ), and whatever else came to mind. When Paradim tried to suggest to her that it was time to return to her own quarters, she would become agitated, until he relented and allowed her to stay. Despite his long-standing dislike of children, Paradim found that he enjoyed Diana’s presence, perhaps because there was nothing child-like about her.

“I think you should return to your room now,” Paradim said after two hours had passed. “Ms. Schelling might get worried.”

“You’re right, sir,” Diana said, her stomach lurching when she thought of what Ms. Schelling would say if she discovered that her young charge was absent. “Will you walk with me? I’m afraid of those other people.”

“Of course,” Paradim said, picking the girl up in his arms. He carried her through the now-empty halls, half-expecting to see a straggler or two copulating in a darkened corner.

“There’s my room right there,” Diana said, wishing that she could be with her new friend forever.

“Then this is where we must part,” Paradim said to Diana as he put her down in front of the door to the suite.

“Thank you, Mr. Paradim,” Diana said shyly. “Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before.

“What happened to you was truly tragic and unfortunate, especially the response of your so-called parents. As my own birthday gift to you, I will ensure that Antoine Ducheval never harms another girl.”

“How?”

“You needn’t worry yourself about that. Happy Birthday and Happy New Year, Lady Diana LaFrenz.”

Diana watched Paradim pad down the hall in his slippers, and wondered how this man knew it was her birthday.

Ms. Schelling never knew what happened on the night of Diana’s seventh birthday. Antoine Ducheval mysteriously disappeared the day after Diana’s birthday. He was last seen in the early morning hours of January 2, 2007 on Tommy LaFrenz’s pleasure yacht, which was moored off the coast of southern France. No body was ever found.


	6. This Child is Like a Monkey to Me

After her seventh birthday, Diana became accustomed to traumatic experiences during her visits with parents; she had to act as Tommy and Sophie’s designated driver in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival; Tommy once requested that she and Ms. Schelling bail Sophie and himself out of a Mexican prison; she was once left in the company of a troupe of porn actresses so Tommy and Sophie could attend the Adult Film Awards; when Diana made her debut as a professional musician playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Seattle Orchestra (the director was a friend of a friend of Tommy’s), her parents spent the entire program snorting cocaine in the bathroom; the indignities never ended. The behavior of her father after these incidents was especially confusing. While Sophie had always regarded her daughter with a mixture of indifference and revulsion, Tommy occasionally provided her with affection and expensive gifts. However, Tommy consistently failed to rise to the occasion when faced with a situation that required a genuine exchange of emotions. She looked for her friend, Mr. Paradim during her parental visitations, but she never saw him again at one of Tommy and Sophia’s functions. Diana couldn’t blame Mr. Paradim for his absence, as she herself wouldn’t voluntarily associate with her parents and their “friends” if she had any choice in the matter.

The breaking point occurred in late 2008, when Diana met up with Tommy and Sophia in Aspen, Colorado. Tommy and Sophie were familiar with Aspen as a playground for the rich and beautiful, but true to form, they barely ventured outside, spending their time exclusively in expensive resorts and clubs, where their conspicuous inability to ski or engage in any sort of physical activity would go unnoticed. Ms. Schelling, however, who had grown up in the Alps and for whom skiing was as natural as walking, was in her element, tackling the most difficult slopes with ease. Tommy and the other members of his entourage couldn’t stop talking about Ms. Schelling’s expertise on the slopes (“That must explain why her legs are so great,” he said. “Skiing!”), enraging Sophie, who was offended that a “homely Alpine bluestocking” was taking attention away from herself.

Mixed in with Sophie’s anger was jealousy at Ms. Schelling’s youth, a fact that enraged her further. At fifty-one, Sophie was still physically beautiful, and men half her age continued to fight for her attention, but she was feeling old, physically and mentally, like she was rotting from the inside. She recalled how she and her siblings, Phillipe and Emmanuelle, used to go to Studio 54 in the late 1970s and would occasionally see a broken down Truman Capote, slurring and stumbling about. The three youngsters would mock the literary great for his inept attempts to seem young and relevant, knowing that there was nothing he could do to be considered cool in their eyes. Now, Sophie, the only surviving member of the Lebec siblings, wondered if she had become Truman Capote, an elderly, self-medicating, has-been, trying attempt to stave off the inevitable march of time.

During those few moments when Sophie allowed herself to be honest with herself, she would wonder whether she ought to go to rehab and stopped partying. But Sophie had been a party girl since she was fifteen, and couldn’t imagine any other way of life; the only alternative would involve being industrious and morally straight like Ms. Schelling, which hardly seemed like living. When Sophie’s thoughts turned to Ms. Schelling, she would became even more upset, offended by the notion that something as precious as youth was being wasted on someone so ugly and dull. And then Sophie would realize that not only was she old enough to be Ms. Schelling’s mother, but she was old enough to be Diana’s grandmother as well. The idea of being replaced by the daughter she had never wanted was so obscene that Sophie could scarcely believe it that it was happening, but it was. Already, people were discussing how beautiful Diana was, and how she would one day rival her mother as the society world’s great beauty. Diana was growing up, while Sophie was merely growing old. Even her beloved Tommy was becoming slower and wrinklier; when she saw a flock of interchangeable blond snow bunnies rebuffing Tommy’s advances, she wondered whether Ms. Schelling’s assessment of his character as a, “nasty, goatish old man” had some truth to it. Not that she cared whether Tommy was nasty or goatish (for she considered those attributes part of his charm), but the idea of Tommy, that dynamo of energy, sexual and otherwise, becoming just another doddering boule lyonnaise-playing pensioner was a grim prospect to contemplate. Such was the angst that Ms. Schelling’s skiing caused for Sophie LaFrenz.

With thoughts of age, health, and beauty pressing on her mind, Sophie was in a foul mood when she found herself in a trendy restaurant with her husband and daughter. She sullenly drank black coffee, as Tommy made small talk with Diana, while Raquel sat in her lap and screeched menacingly at the other customers. Raquel had always been a difficult creature to handle, but she had become more aggressive since entering puberty the year before. Her teeth and nails were removed as a preventive measure, but Raquel continued to bite and scratch anything and anyone with whom she came into contact. Tommy wanted to get rid of Raquel (“Only a fool would go to a party where they jolly well might get tetanus,” he said), but Sophie refused to part with her beloved “daughter.”

“Only eight years old and already doing calculus!” Tommy exclaimed. “Isn’t that amazing, Sophie?”

The woman in question shrugged and gave a piece of bread to Raquel, who threw it at a passing waiter.

“I’m total rot at mathematics,” Tommy continued. “Can’t even calculate a tip without pen and paper, and even then it’s a touch and go situation.”

“I didn’t think monkeys were allowed in restaurants,” said Diana, looking apprehensively at Raquel.

“People have been surprisingly understanding about it. I suppose it’s sort of like those little yap dogs that women like to carry in their purses.”

“Except that dogs are domesticated and don’t have opposable thumbs.”

“One thing I’ll say about Raquel is that she knows how to make a _devilishly_ good martini...”

Before Tommy could wax on about Raquel’s bar tending abilities, the monkey suddenly lunged at Diana, knocking her to the ground. The enraged animal tore the girl’s right ear off, pulled out a fistful of hair from the roots, and began biting her on the back of her neck and shoulders. Tommy and Sophie were as useless as ever during the crisis, the former hiding in the bathroom, the latter screaming for someone to save Raquel. While most of the people in the restaurant followed Tommy’s lead and fled, a quick thinking waiter threw a fire extinguisher at Raquel to get the creature off Diana. Raquel, who was startled but not hurt, leapt from table to table before escaping through the fire exit in the kitchen.

“Go out and find Raquel!” Sophie screamed, lowering herself to speak in English to the crowd of shocked and hysterical bystanders. “That monkey is like a child to me!”

“What about your daughter, ma’am?” said the owner of the establishment, who was trying to deal with the panic and the crowd and the bleeding child on the floor.

“Well, what about her?”

Diana, weak from pain and blood loss, saw her ear lying on the marbled floor in a bloody mass, and fainted. Her last memory before she embraced the darkness was to wonder where her father was.

*

Raquel was eventually captured by animal control officials, who euthanized and beheaded her so the brain could be examined for rabies and other pathologies. The necropsy revealed that the only thing wrong with Raquel was that she was a wild animal forced to live as a human. Sophie was inconsolable, blaming Diana for the death of the “fur baby,” and decided to soothe her pain by taking up a new pastime: heroin. While Sophie was no stranger to drugs, she had never tried heroin until Raquel’s death. The depressive and euphoric effects of heroin enabled Sophie to temporarily numb her grief and anything else she might be feeling. Tommy was apprehensive about dabbling in heroin - he was afraid of needles - but he was never one to turn down the opportunity to try a new drug. The story of the idiotic socialites whose pet monkey attacked their daughter quickly made it into the news media, where pundits and talking heads of various political stripes fretted over what the incident revealed about the state of modern parenthood. It also caught the attention of a certain CEO of an up and coming California tech firm, who decided that the poor little rich girl could use some cheering up during her recovery.

Meanwhile, Diana lay in the hospital, recovering under heavy sedation. She had surgery to reattach her ear and numerous stitches to close the bite wounds on her neck and back. The surgeons marveled at how lucky Diana was to have survived the attack at all; had Raquel’s bites been a few centimeters deeper, she would have bled to death before the ambulance arrived. During her stay in the hospital, Diana alternated between periods of semi-consciousness and drug-induced hallucinations. Some of these strange visions were primordial memories, such as the one involving Ms. Schelling switching her three-year old hand for not holding a fountain pen correctly or a faint recollection of a nanny singing a lullaby in Spanish. At other times, she recalled flickering, lumpy, shadows, reminiscent of the shadowy figures from the orgy. She saw her parents, fornicating with other people, while Ms. Schelling held a rifle to their heads and scolded them for their immorality. Her attack in the hallway by Antoine Ducheval played out dozens of times in her dream state, and each time she was rescued by the yellow-eyed Mr. Paradim, who became more heroic in each re-imagining of the ordeal. The final iteration of this fantasy transformed Ducheval into a bear in a three-piece suite, who was dispatched by a lance-wielding Mr. Paradim atop a white horse.

While memories of memories played out in Diana’s head, her body struggled to heal itself from the catastrophic wounds she received. It was a battle that Diana had to fight alone, as she received no visitors during her convalescence; Sophie had no interest in visiting the person she held responsible for Raquel’s death, and Tommy was more interested in his wife’s feelings than his daughter’s well-being. Ms. Schelling was unable to visit because she wasn’t a family member, but she did sent her student a series of get well cards accompanied by lengthy treatises she had written on Stoic philosophy. Diana understood that Ms. Schelling was trying to be helpful in her own way, but she felt like she needed more than Seneca to feel better. Occasionally, the nurses would take pity on Diana and try to engage in small talk, but the child talked over their heads, and they soon gave up. Her one consolation was a bouquet of long-stemmed roses that was accompanied by a card that read,

_Feel better soon._

_Your friend,_

_Mr. Paradim_

After being in the hospital for almost four weeks, Diana was finally released to the custody of Ms. Schelling, who felt better than she had in years. While waiting for her young charge to recover, Ms Schelling spent her time enjoying the slopes, shooting, and catching up on her reading, all at the expense of the LaFrenzes. She felt guilty for having such a good time, while Diana languished in the hospital alone, but she rationalized her happiness by reflecting that there wasn’t anything she could do about the draconian regulations around hospital visitations.

“Do you love me, Ms. Schelling?” Diana suddenly asked, when her governess helped her into the limousine that was taking them to the airport after her discharge from the hospital.

“What?” replied Ms. Schelling, who was completely unprepared for this question.

“Do you love me?”

“Well, I do feel a certain degree of affection for you,” Ms. Schelling said haltingly. “as is normal for two people who have spent as much time together as we have over the years.”

“What does that mean?”

“If we define love in the traditional Christian manner of agape, meaning wanting the other person to achieve the Good, then I guess I could say that I do love you.”

There was an awkward silence. Mr. Wolcott had actually asked the same question more than once over the years and received similar responses. While Mr. Wolcott was content (and turned on) by these overly cerebral declarations of affection, they left Diana disappointed. She stared at her governess with a pleading expression, that disturbed Ms. Schelling to her very core.

“Come on,” Ms. Schelling finally said. “Let’s be on our way so we don’t miss our flight.”

As the limousine rolled down the interstate, Diana stared blankly out the tinted windows and realized that she was alone in life.

Out loud she said, “Do you know a man named Lewis Leon Paradim, Ms. Schelling?”

“Mr. Paradim is the CEO of the Robotic Megafact Corporation,” replied Ms. Schelling, without looking up from the German language philosophy journal she was reading.

“What kind of company is the Robotic Megafact Corporation, Ms. Schelling?”

“It makes robots for personal and industrial use. It is considered to be a ‘maverick’ corporation because artificial intelligence is still such an experimental field. I predict that Mr. Paradim’s gamble will fail, if nothing else for the fact that already depressed blue-collar sector in the industrialized world would never accept the structural unemployment that would occur in the wake of mass robotization.”

“Maybe if robots performed the least desirable jobs, humans could have more time to improve their minds, Ms. Schelling,” Diana said, before she realized that she had expressed an opinion that was contrary to that of her tutor.

“Why do you care about this Mr. Paradim? We have never discussed him in any of our lessons.”

“I heard other people talking about him, Ms. Schelling,” Diana replied, omitting her impromptu meeting with Mr. Paradim two years prior and the roses he had sent her during her hospital stay. “I was just curious.”

Unbeknownst to Ms. Schelling, Diana kept the roses Mr. Paradim had given her, dried them, and placed them in her journal, as a memento from the only person who seemed to care whether she lived or died.

Once she was backing in Washington State, Diana underwent several reconstructive surgeries to repair the damage that was done to her back and neck. The skills of the surgeons was so skillful, that not only were all traces of the scars removed, but her skin looked better than it had before the incident. Diana’s only request was that the doctors not remove the scar from behind her ear; whenever she felt herself becoming somewhat sentimental about her parents, she would touch the scar behind her right ear and remember.


	7. Sempre Libera

Diana’s final visit with her parents occurred in the waning days of 2009, shortly before her tenth birthday. Neither she or Ms. Schelling had seen Tommy and Sophie since the monkey attack, and they were unaware of the duo’s deadly new habit. When Tommy met Ms. Schelling and Diana at the airport, the girl was shocked at her father’s appearance; his wrinkled suit hung off his withered frame, his cheekbones jutted out of his face at a sharp angle, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“Good to see you, old girl,” Tommy said in a weak voice. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine, Tommy,” Diana replied, staring at Tommy’s trembling hands. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Of course, dear. Why would you think otherwise?”

“You seem...unwell.”

“Oh no, I’m fine,” Tommy said, trying to convince himself that it was true. “Just fine. Ms. Schelling told me that you performed with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra again.”

“That’s correct, Tommy.”

“That’s fine. Just fine. Violin or piano?”

“I played piano this time, Tommy. Mozart’s Piano Concerto #23.”

“That’s fine,” Tommy repeated. “Just fine.”

“However, I think I’m better at violin, Tommy” Diana said, pleased that her father was taking an interest in her life.

“That’s fine. Just fine.”

“My dream is to play Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, Tommy. It’s one of the hardest pieces in the repertoire.”

“I...I had the chance to play violin,” Tommy said dreamily. “Mother wanted me to play, you know. She loved Grieg, especially the hymns. I was rot at it. Rot at most things... You’ll have to play for me while you’re here, poppet. It’ll have to be on the DL, of course. Sophie doesn’t seem to like classical music...don’t know why. She’s odd like that...”

“Are you _sure_ you’re feeling well, Lord LaFrenz?” asked Ms. Schelling, who was becoming more alarmed at her employer’s odd behavior and frail countenance.

“Of course. Never better.”

“I’m going to play Paganini’s Caprices for you Tommy,” Diana said, her joy at spending time with her father outweighing her concerns about his deteriorating health.

“Yes, I’d like that,” Tommy said, unsure who Paganini was or what a caprice might be. “You can play tomorrow. We’ll have ice cream and...talk afterwards. About school, and...whatever. Is that all right, Ms. Schelling?”

“It should be fine if you act _appropriately_ , Lord LaFrenz,” Ms. Schelling said.

“Fine,” Tommy said with a weary smile. “That’s fine. Right now, let’s all of us go to the yacht. Sophie is _devilishly_ particular about me being out like this.”

“Why is Sophie telling you what to do?” said Diana indignantly, as they walked to a waiting limousine.

“Diana...” Ms. Schelling said threateningly, reaching for a switch that was hidden in her purse.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tommy assured the governess. “Sophie’s just...very possessive. She’s strange like that...”

The little group walked through the airport and its adjoining parking lot in silence. During the walk, Diana contemplated her mother’s conduct towards her. Sophie had never hugged her, never told her that she loved her, never given her a birthday present, never even paid her a compliment, and didn’t even seem to know her name. They had only had two direct conversations in nine years, the first being the disastrous initial meeting five years ago when Sophie told Diana that she didn’t want to be a mother and when she accused Diana of trying to seduce Antoine Ducheval. Other than that, silence. Diana knew that Tommy and Sophie liked to party and use drugs, but Tommy at least made some token effort to be in her life, whereas Sophie was simply a beautiful, smoking, phantom that pulled her husband’s strings. Diana decided that she needed answers from Sophie, to confront her about the way she’d been treated.

“I want to speak with Lady LaFrenz,” Diana announced when they were in the car. “Privately.”

Ms. Schelling and Tommy stared at her, causing the latter to inquire, “Why would you want to do that?”

“What could be more natural than a daughter wanting to speak with her mother?”

“Yes,” Tommy replied, unaccustomed to thinking of his wife as a mother. “Of course. I’ll go speak with her.”

“Are you sure this is wise, Lord LaFrenz?” asked Ms. Schelling.

“Well, Sophie _is_ her mother in a way...”

While Ms. Schelling and Tommy argued about whether the advisability of the proposed meeting, Diana made a mental note of all the things she wanted to say to the mysterious woman who had given birth to her.

*

Three hours later, Diana stood at the door of Tommy and Sophie’s private quarters, a place that she had never entered before. She heard Sophie’s gravelly, chain smoker voice say, “ _Entrez_ - _vous,_ ” and she opened the door, wondering if she had made the right decision. Her mother had never shown any interest in her before, and Diana doubted that this meeting would do much to change the status quo.

The stateroom was dark, both in terms of decor and visibility. It was covered in blood-colored shag carpet that enclosed the floor, walls, and ceiling. The only light source was a small Tiffany lamp that colored the lingering smoke in a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors. There was a king-sized heart shaped waterbed positioned against the far side of the room. The air was thick with the acidic odor of burning tobacco and marijuana. Sophie sat to the corner in a garish Louis XV chair with a superior attitude, like a debauched queen. Unlike Tommy, Sophie was still quite attractive, but she looked like a beautiful corpse; Diana half-expected maggots to hatch out of Sophie’s skin.

“Sophie?” Diana said hesitantly, as she gingerly entered the room to avoid stepping on the drug paraphernalia that littered the floor.

“ _Remember to speak in French, dear_ ,” Sophie replied, idly flicking ashes on the floor.

“ _Why do I have to speak French?_ ” Diana asked irritably, stepping on the smoldering ashes to prevent the outbreak of fire. “ _I’ve heard you speaking English._ ”

“ _What difference does it make? Tommy tells me that your tutor says that you speak four languages fluently and you read Latin and Greek. Never mind that. Why are you here_?”

“ _Because I have some questions for you._ ”

“ _Go ahead_ ,” Sophie sighed, examining her manicure.

“ _First, why do you insist on making me visit you when all you do is smoke and do drugs?_ ”

“ _Tommy is the one who wants you here. I would prefer that you stay with your governess indefinitely,_ ” Sophie said, producing graceful smoke rings with her pursed lips. “ _Exactly why he desires your company is a mystery to me_.”

“ _How is this a mystery to you? You’re my parents! At least Tommy tries. Sometimes..._ ”

Diana expected Sophie to be angered by this criticism, but the woman merely shrugged her shoulders and continued blowing smoke rings.

“ _I never wanted children_ ,” Sophie said. “ _I simply wanted to enjoy the good life. No, not just the good life, but the life of pleasure. This is possible, because I have been blessed with inherited wealth which absolves me of the need to work._ ”

“ _You sound like a parasite_.”

“ _Who’s a parasite?_ ” Sophie snapped, pointing her cigarette at Diana accusingly. “ _Children constantly demand things of their parents and never repay them. It starts at the very beginning with pregnancy when the fetus saps nutrients from its mother to live. After living off their host’s body for nine months, they enter the world, unable to do anything for themselves, and it’s the mother -- and it is always the mother -- who has to give up whatever ambitions she might have in life to take care of it for eighteen or twenty-one or however many years. And perhaps, most importantly, childbirth ruins a woman’s figure. Your birth was the worst thing that ever happened to me._ ”

“ _It couldn’t have been that bad for your figure if you didn’t know you were pregnant_ ,” Diana shot back.

 _“That’s irrelevant. I repeat, the worst experience in my life was the night when you decided to slither out of my womb._ _If I had known I was pregnant, I would have certainly had an abortion_. _I’ve had them in the past, and wouldn’t have hesitated to have one then. Maybe if I had been in a better state of mind, I could have just put my hand over your mouth, tossed the body overboard, and ended the problem right away._ ”

Diana didn’t know the exact definition of “abortion” – Ms. Schelling’s ethics classes never discussed anything of a practical nature – but understood that she was alone in the same room with a woman who expressed a desire to kill her. Any hopes that Diana may have about having any semblance of a normal relationship with Sophie died at that moment.

“ _What do I need to do to make you love me_?” Diana asked sadly.

“ _Some women are just not meant to be mothers_ ,” Sophie said, reveling in the pain she was inflicting on Diana. “ _There’s nothing wrong with that._ ”

“ _But you_ _ are _ _a mother! Can’t you understand that_?”

“ _I choose not to be, so I am not_. _You want things from me that I cannot give you, although I was always open with you about how I felt about the matter. Tommy feels more or less the same way as I do, though he would never tell you. The remnants of his English public school education compel him to have some kind of abstract ‘duty’ towards you, but he will never be the kind of father you want him to be. It’s just not possible.”_

“ _I don’t even know why you and Tommy bothered to get married if you were just going to have sex with whomever you wanted_ ,” Diana said angrily.

“ _Old-fashioned, maybe_ ?” Sophie wondered aloud. “ _Who knows? I find it useful to have a marriage license to keep Tommy on a short leash. Our_ _marriage may be open, but Tommy is mine, heart, mind, and soul, and I will not tolerate another person to compete with me, even if it is his own daughter. His first and only loyalty must be to me, if only for the fact that my personal fortune from the House of LeBec finances our lifestyle. Tommy has been cut off from his father’s money since the 1960s. If he leaves me, he would be no better than a bum in the street. You simply cannot compete with me in his affections. What I say hurts you, does it not?_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Diana replied, trying her best to keep calm in the face of her mother’s monstrous commentary.

“ _Your situation is not as bad as you think_ ,” Sophie said, giving Diana a condescending pat on the head, like she was a dog about to be put to sleep. “ _Many children have parents who do not love them, and they live in squalor and misery. You, on the other hand, have money, a private tutor, titles, mansions, and custom-made clothes. Even many children who have ‘good’ parents don’t have a quarter of what you have. It would be better for you if were grateful for what you have rather than obsess over what you lack._ ”

“ _What are you on?_ ” Diana shouted, taking out her anger on a glass bong that she flung against the wall. “ _You’ve got to be doing more than cigarettes, marijuana, and cocaine. Tommy looks like a skeleton._ ”

Diana expected her bong smashing would elicit some kind of reaction in Sophie, but all she did was crush the remains of her cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and say, “ _Why do you care?_ ”

“ _Because...because he’s my father. And you’re my mother, even if you won’t admit it_.”

“ _If you must know..._ ”

“ _I have to know_ ,” Diana asserted. “ _I have a right to know_.”

“ _If you must know_ ,” Sophie continued irritably. “ _although you have no right to, we’ve been doing some heroin here and there._ ”

“ _When did you start_?”

“ _After Raquel’s passed_. _The pain was too much to bear. With heroin, I feel nothing, and life becomes somewhat easier to manage._ ”

“ _What is there to manage? It’s not like you have a job_.”

“ _A lot. Even my money can’t blunt all of life’s difficulties._ ” Sophie’s normally icy demeanor softened and she rose from her throne. “ _My mother died of breast cancer when I was eight and my father installed a impertinent teenage maid from Morocco as his concubine. Thank God that hideous union didn’t produce any offspring; I couldn’t bear having a Muslim, African, half-Arab sibling. My sister Emmanuelle drowned in her boyfriend’s pool when I was twenty-three. I think she was murdered, but I have no proof of this. My brother Philippe died two years later in a small plane crash. Then you showed up and my beloved Antoine disappeared and Raquel...”_

“ _Why heroin_ ?” Diana interrupted, uninterested in the details of Sophie’s various family tragedies. “ _Why now_?”

“ _Heroin is the most beautiful drug I’ve ever had_ ,” Sophie said dreamily, as she reached into a nightstand drawer to get a fresh supply of cigarettes. “ _The euphoria is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, even better than cocaine. My tolerance for cocaine must be too high, because it hardly does anything for me now. I fooled around a bit with LSD and mushrooms when I was younger, but such things are too unpredictable. Tommy was a bit hesitant to try heroin at first, but he’s always had a refreshing ‘I’ll try anything once’ attitude._ ”

“ _You got Tommy addicted to heroin_?”

“ _No, I didn’t make Tommy do anything_ ,” said Sophie, giving Diana a sharp look _._ “ _This is what he chose_. _I see you want to blame me, but if there’s anyone to blame it’s you._ ”

“ _Me? What did I do?_ ”

“ _You’re responsible for Raquel’s death. I was clean -- at least from hard drugs -- before she was executed by those animal control people. Raquel was the only one who loved me, who wasn’t trying to use me for sex or money or drugs...”_

“ _I could have loved you if you had given me the chance_ ,” Diana replied softly.

Sophie recoiled from the suggestion, as if she’d been hit. “ _No, that would never work. I must be free. Your love would only trap me. Tommy’s love or whatever it is that he feels for me, I can control. Raquel just ‘was’ and you, my dear Diana could never just ‘be.’ I could talk to Raquel and she wouldn’t talk back. The ideal companion. You, on the other hand, are far too clever for your own good. Even now, you stand in judgement of me, you, a girl not even ten years old._ ”

 _“I didn’t kill Raquel!”_ Diana cried, who was close to losing control. “ _That creature attacked me for no reason. She was a wild animal who had no business being your pet or anyone else’s pet. Why did you spent all that time mourning a stupid monkey when I was lying in the hospital with a severed ear?_ ”

“ _They put the ear back on and you got reconstructive surgery_ ,” Sophie said carelessly, unable to understand why Diana was upset. _“What’s the problem?_ ”

“ _You didn’t call, you didn’t visit, you didn’t sent a card...you just abandoned me so you could do drugs and have orgies._ ”

 _“I will live free and die free, Diana LaFrenz, and I will get rid of anything that impedes my freedom_ ,” Sophie said firmly, lighting up another cigarette. “ _Your Ms. Schelling, your old-fashioned Ms. Schelling has introduced you to the opera, yes? You know the aria ‘Sempre Libera’? That is my motto, my theme. You do not fit into my theme. You can either accept this or not. Now please leave. I’m tired of your presence._ ”

Diana ran out of the room without replying to her mother’s stinging words. When she was out of the room, the girl ran down the hall, crying and screaming, until she bumped into her father, who was staggering out of one of other staterooms with glazed eyes and an unsteady gait.

“Is something the matter, poppet?” Tommy hesitantly, unsure what to do about a hysterical child.

“Do you love me, Tommy?” Diana asked, purposely ignoring her father’s question.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Yes or no?”

“That’s kind of complicated, poppet...”

“How so? A parent’s love for a child shouldn’t be complicated.”

“Well, of course I’m quite fond of you, dear. Sort of like how I love schnapps. You’re both sweet and pleasing to behold.”

“Why didn’t you see me when I was in the hospital?”

“I couldn’t exactly see you when I wasn’t in Aspen. You see, Sophie and I had gone to...”

“Gone to where?” Diana shouted, breaking out of his embrace. “A good parent doesn’t go gallivanting off to God knows where when their kid just got her ear ripped off.”

“You were in good hands,” Tommy replied sheepishly. “So I thought...”

“Tell me, what were you thinking?” Diana said, her eyes flashing and her voice filled with venom. “And tell me what you were thinking when Sophie accused me of seducing Antoine Ducheval, the man who tried to rape me? Do you ever think about anything but sex and drugs?”

“I...I...I wish things could have been different,” Tommy said, looking much older than his sixty-three years. “For all of us. I don’t know how, but I wish it could have been different.”

“Things _can_ be different,” Diana insisted, her anger dissipating when she saw her father’s hangdog look. She desperately wanted to believe that her father loved her, a fact which Tommy knew and exploited.

“No, it’s too late. I know I’ve been a bloody awful father to you, but...I just don’t want you to be angry at me. Please don’t be angry.”

Diana started crying again, causing Tommy to embrace her and say, “It’ll be all right, poppet. Tomorrow we’re going to eat ice cream and talk about...”

“Whatever?” Diana offered, trying to smile through her tears.

“Exactly. And you’ll play those violin numbers you told me about. Everything will be different.”

“Will you stop doing drugs?”

Tommy blanched. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Diana was unsure if Tommy was truly penitent or if he was just saying that to make her stop crying, but at that moment she needed to hear her father’s lies to counteract her mother’s truths. She wanted to believe that she had at least one parent who loved her, one person who didn’t think she was a mistake or a burden. She wanted to believe that she had a family.

*

Diana spent the rest of the day in a deep depression and a corresponding lethargy. No matter how many times Ms. Schelling whipped her, Diana could not forget Sophie’s admission that she didn’t love her and Tommy’s tepid response to her agony.

“What is wrong with you, Diana?” demanded Ms. Schelling after a particularly long whipping session. “Your deportment has been deplorable all day.”

“My mother hates me, Ms. Schelling,” Diana wailed. “She wishes I was dead. _I_ wish I was dead.”

“Calm down,” replied Ms. Schelling, unsure of what to do in the face of a childcare problem that couldn’t be solved through corporal punishment or additional homework. “You probably misunderstood her.”

“No, I didn’t, Ms. Schelling. She said that she wishes that she had aborted me and that she doesn’t love me.”

Ms. Schelling wasn’t surprised by this revelation, but she knew that it had to be a crushing blow for Diana. Ms. Schelling had an unspoken rule that Diana was forbidden to discuss her parents unconventional lifestyle, because the she believed that it would be detrimental for the child’s moral well-being to dwell on such a sordid topic. However, Diana’s most recent disappointment from her mother demanded a more forthright response.

“Be thankful that you weren’t aborted,” Ms. Schelling said hesitantly. “You have life, you have health, you have reason, and you have intelligence.”

Diana was unimpressed by Ms. Schelling’s “pep talk,” most of which sounded like what Sophie had told her earlier in the day.

“Did I do something wrong?” Diana lamented, doodling idly on her history notes. “Is that why they live...the way they do?”

“Your parents live the way they do because they have too much money and not enough morals or self-control,” Ms. Schelling said bluntly. “I myself came from a monied background, and never once contemplated wasting my life on parties, drugs, and fornication. You should consider yourself lucky that your father had enough foresight to leave you in the company of responsible people, rather than expose you to their debauchery. From what I understand, your parents have lived this way for decades, long before you were born and long before they even met each other. There is nothing wrong with you. The problem is them. We’ve spent enough time on this unpleasantness. Return to your history essay.”

Diana returned to her schoolwork, the workings of her mind equally divided between Ms. Schelling’s commentary on her parents and the Treaty of Westphalia. She recalled that strange meeting, more than five years ago, when Sophie told her that she didn’t want to be a mother (at least, not to a human child). Diana was grateful for Ms. Schelling, even if she didn’t love her in a conventional sense, she at least had decency.

*

The next morning, Diana and Ms. Schelling woke up to the sounds of mass panic, with dozens of people running and shouting in the halls.

“Stay in the room and don’t leave until I come to retrieve you,” Ms. Schelling told Diana, once they had both changed into their daytime attire.

The governess closed, but did not lock the door, enabling Diana to slip out of the room. Ms. Schelling went to the upper decks, while Diana wandered through the halls, where the source of the commotion appeared to be centered.

“What’s going on, sir?” demanded Diana, after flagging down the man whom she recognized as Ike the bartender.

“Lady Diana,” Ike said anxiously. “Something happened to your parents...”

“Where are they?”

“Their stateroom, but I don’t think you should see them...”

Diana went to Tommy and Sophie’s quarters, where a large group of disreputable characters were congregating, many of whom were in various states of intoxication and/or undress. She pushed her way through the crowd to discover what the source of controversy was. When Diana reached the front of the crowd, she saw Tommy and Sophie lying on the floor, dead.

Tommy’s shirtless, emaciated body was horribly contorted in a state of rigor mortis: his left arm was enclosed in a tourniquet and pointing skyward, his eyes were glazed over, and a white foam dribbled out of the mouth. Next to him was Sophie, who was beautiful even in death. She looked as wan and pale in death as she did in life, but her expression was peaceful, her hair perfectly styled, and her clothes straight from Paris. Unfortunately, Sophie died beautifully but without dignity; her dress was hiked up above her waist and her underwear was around her ankles, revealing a hypodermic needle that protruded from a collapsed vein in her crotch. The space around them was littered with drug paraphernalia and narcotic residue. The entire scene was so macabre that Diana thought she was in a dream, but she didn't think that her subconscious was capable of creating anything so monstrous.

“Diana, where are you?” Ms. Schelling’s voice cried out from the halls. “Have any of you seen Diana LaFrenz?”

Ms. Schelling stopped mid-sentence when she saw her young charge standing in front of the bodies, and screamed in a way that was unfitting for a woman devoted to the pursuit of reason.

As she stared at her parents’ bodies, Diana tried to determine what she should be feeling. The only emotion that she could muster up for Sophie was a smug satisfaction that her mother got what she deserved for abandoning her maternal responsibilities. Her feelings towards Tommy were more complex, because she couldn’t forget the little acts of kindness that were sprinkled in with the irresponsibility and debauchery. The ice cream date that they shared on Diana’s seventh birthday remained one of her most treasured memories, even if he was a total coward when she was attacked by Antoine Ducheval. Diana wondered if Sophie had died, and Tommy had lived, maybe she could have rescued him from his vices and they could have lived happily ever after as a normal father and daughter.

“Why haven’t any of you parasites called the police?” snapped Ms. Schelling after she recovered from her uncharacteristic loss of self-control. “These people have obviously been dead for hours.”

“Lord and Lady LaFrenz told us - the crew, that is - not to disturb them until morning, Ms. Schelling,” Ike said sheepishly. “We had no idea something had happened until thirty minutes ago.”

“What about you?” Ms. Schelling said, turning to the “friends” of the deceased. “Where were you?”

While Ms. Schelling berated the crowd, Diana walked over to her father’s body and lightly kicked the corpse’s right side.

“Tommy?” Diana said questioningly, when her foot touched the body’s exposed ribs. She recalled her father’s last words to her, that he wanted to hear her play Paganini’s Caprice No.13 and then they would eat ice cream and talk about “whatever”...

“Why did you have to lie to me again?” Diana screamed, falling to her knees.

Aware of the need to ease her student’s hysteria, Ms. Schelling dragged Diana away from the bodies and the parasitic hangers on and took her to their stateroom. Once they were in their room, Ms. Schelling gave her a rare hug and started reciting lines from Seneca’s “Consolation to Marcia” in Latin. The famous treatise on grief was probably not the best choice, given its conspicuous lack of empathy towards the recipient, but Seneca’s words were comforting to Diana, precisely because they were so detached, reminding the girl of a world of order, detachment, and logic, where reasonable people didn’t take heroin, abandon their children, or dress monkeys in pinafores.

This blessed calm lasted until the police broke down the door, with automatic rifles pointed at the two unarmed females, causing Diana to start screaming again.

“Put the girl down and get on the ground with your hands behind your head,” demanded the leader.

“You can’t treat me like this,” Ms. Schelling said indignantly. “I’m a Swiss citizen and...”

“Down or I’ll shoot!”

Ms. Schelling tried complying with the police’s demands, a task that proved difficult because Diana refused to let go of her. Consequently, Ms. Schelling’s progress was not quick enough for the tastes of the police, causing two burly policemen to tackled all 115 pounds of her and arrest her, just as they were arresting all the adults on the ship. Her last image of Diana was of her sitting on the bed, with social workers preparing to sweep in, begging her not to leave her as her parents had done.

 


	8. Detained

Mr. Wolcott took pride in the fact that Will ‘O The Wisp Farm was so well-organized, even if Tommy and Sophie LaFrenz were never around to witness it. Thanks to his superior organizational skills, everyone was paid on time, theft was kept to a minimum, and morale was high. Because of the enormous amount of labor that was necessary to keep an estate like Will ‘O The Wisp Farm operational, the staff either lived on the premises or in small cottages in the nearest town. It was an insular, comfortable world that seldom changed, even when Diana LaFrenz entered the picture in 2000. Mr. Wolcott and his subordinates assumed that their comfortable, predictable lives would continue on indefinitely, until a phone call in late 2009 changed everything. Mr. Wolcott was looking over the administrative books of the estate, wishing Ms. Schelling was around, when he received an unexpected phone call from the lady in question.

“Hullo, Will O’ The Wisp Farm,” Mr. Wolcott said. “Please state your business.”

“Ian, I’ve been arrested,” Ms. Schelling said bluntly, not bothering with social niceties.

“What?” Mr. Wolcott said, unable to imagine what Ms. Schelling could have done to get arrested. “What for?”

“Lord and Lady LaFrenz are dead.”

“You _killed_ Lord and Lady LaFrenz?”

“Of course not. They overdosed. With the lifestyle they were living, I’m surprised it didn’t happen years ago.”

“Where’s Diana? What’s going on?”

“The police investigation into the deaths of Lord and Lady LaFrenz revealed that the immigration status of myself and Diana are not entirely regular.”

“You’re illegal?”

“At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if the entire staff at Will ‘O The Wisp is illegal. It might behoove you to find out your own status.”

“How did this happen?”

“Lord LaFrenz told me that he would handle it. Given how badly he handled everything else in his life, I can’t say I’m surprised by this outcome.”

“But the two of you traveled all over the world without anyone noticing...”

“Always on private jets or boats. I expect that there was probably some bribery or some other illegal activity involved. Look, I need you to call my parents in Zurich and to come to the ICE center in Tacoma to post bond. I don’t have any interest in staying here; I just want to return to Europe.”

“But what about...us?”

“Well, you can come too if you want, since you obviously don’t have a job anymore and you’re probably in the country illegally too.”

Mr. Wolcott wanted to ask Ms. Schelling about Diana’s whereabouts, but she had exceeded her allotted time, and the phone unexpectedly cut off.

*

The subsequent investigation into the deaths of Tommy and Sophie LaFrenz revealed that Diana LaFrenz and Ms. Schelling were both in the United States illegally. This revelation created a minor scandal, and an investigation was launched to determine how the two were able to freely enter and leave the country without appropriate documentation for more than seven years. Due to the unusual circumstances surrounding Diana’s birth - having two parents of different nationalities, being born in international waters, a conspicuous lack of a birth certificate, and no known family members to act as a guardian - she was held in a youth immigrant shelter in California until the government could figure out what to do with her.

Unlike her luckless student, Ms. Schelling’s case was a straightforward affair. The police quickly determined that she was innocent of any drug related crimes, but she was guilty of being in the United States illegally, and transferred her to an ICE facility. Traumatized by the violent end of her employment with the LaFrenzes and the shock of being arrested, Ms. Schelling did everything she could to facilitate her release. She assured the authorities that her unauthorized presence in the United States was a fluke, and that she would voluntarily return to Switzerland at the earliest possible convenience, at her own expense. Since there was no controversy about where Ms. Schelling should go and who was footing the bill for her departure, she was released from the ICE facility within a matter of days. Mr. Wolcott, whose own visa had expired about five years prior without his knowledge, met up with Ms. Schelling in Seattle, and the two flew to Switzerland together. Mr. Wolcott would have preferred to return to his own homeland of Britain - he thought that it was easier to be black in England than on the Continent - but he and Ms. Schelling had been a couple so long that the idea of being separated from her was inconceivable. Ms. Schelling’s parents never understood what their daughter did in the United States (her emails suggested that she was a member of a Charles Manson-like sex and drugs cult), and they anxiously awaited her return to Switzerland.

“At least that period of our life is over, Ian.” Ms. Schelling said. “I can’t imagine having to deal with Diana as a rebellious teenager.”

“You kept her on such a short leash, I don’t think Diana could rebel even if she wanted to,” Mr. Wolcott remarked.

“Maybe, but I’m glad that I won’t be around to find out.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious about what’s going to happen to her now?”

“She’s a resilient girl; I’m sure she’ll be fine.” This is what Ms, Schelling said, but it wasn’t what she felt, as she recalled the last moments she spent with her young student.

“So are we going to get married?” Mr. Wolcott asked, moving the conversation to matters more pertinent to his immediate future.

“I suppose,” Ms. Schelling replied, trying to put Diana out of her mind. “It would be illogical not to. We probably should have done it years ago, but there was always something going on. It’s probably better to have the ceremony done in Switzerland anyway so there’s no confusion about your ability to stay in the country.”

*

While Ms. Schelling and Mr. Wolcott planned their future life together in the pursuit of pure reason, Diana was left alone to navigate the perplexities of the American immigration system.

“How do you feel about your parent’s death, dear?” asked the social worker in a grating, infantile voice.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” Diana said, staring at the calendar of puppies and kittens that hung on the wall opposite to herself. “We didn’t spend much time together as a family.”

“You must have some idea how you feel.” Diana did know how she felt about the recent unpleasantness, but she had no desire to share it with someone who treated her like a baby even though they both knew that she was the woman’s intellectual superior. She felt no sorrow at Sophie’s passing (although she felt like she should), and a mixture of regret and anger at Tommy. Curiously enough, the person she missed most was Ms. Schelling. Despite Ms. Schelling’s many flaws - her cold demeanor, her enthusiasm for corporal punishment, her dislike of what most people would refer to as “fun” - she was the closest thing Diana had to a mother, and now she was gone. She knew Ms. Schelling resented being her stand-in mother, but she was the one who took care of her when she was sick, brushed her hair, taught her how to read (in six languages, no less), and comforted her with the words of Seneca when her biological mother disappointed her. Perhaps, Ms. Schelling didn’t love her in a conventional way, but it was the only love she had. However, Diana didn’t talk about Ms. Schelling, because she doubted that the social worker would understand the bizarre logic that underpinned her previous life.

“Can you tell me where you’re from, dear?” the social worker, whose name was Ms. Hendrix, continued in an even more infantile voice.

“I’ve already told you I don’t know,” Diana replied irritably.

“I find it hard to believe that a smart girl like you can’t answer such a simple question. I mean, goodness, your psychological tests indicate that your IQ is off the charts.”

“That’s a separate issue, ma’am. I lived almost my entire life at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm in Washington State. I don’t remember living anywhere else.”

“It’s important for me to know this, so I can help you with your case.”

“There is no case. I’m not like these other children, ma’am. I know I don’t have a case and I know I’m going to be deported, the only question is which country I’ll be sent. I don’t have access to my birth certificate or any other important papers. I’m not even sure I exist from a legal standpoint.”

The social worker stared at Diana in bewilderment, while the girl stared looked back with a mixture of annoyance and condescension.

“I’m the only asking you this for your own good. Undocumented minors aren’t entitled to lawyers in immigration court.”

“They aren’t?” Diana said in shock. “But I’ve seen children here that are two years old. What are they supposed to do?”

“They’ll have to represent themselves,” Ms. Hendrix said matter-of-factly.

“How is a toddler supposed to adequately represent themselves in a court of law, ma’am?”

“I don’t make the rules, Diana. I’m the only party who is authorized to provide consul to you children. Well, I think for now you should go to school, while we figure out what to do with you.”

“I don’t need to go to school, ma’am. I’m sure I already know everything that’s being taught.”

“You won’t be in fourth grade, of course,” the social worker said, misinterpreting Diana’s intent. “You can take classes with the high school students.”

Diana was about to respond that she knew more than the high schoolers, when the social worker beckoned her to follow her to a classroom.

*

“ _Class, I want to introduce you to Diana LaFrenz_ ,” the teacher said in Spanish. “ _She’ll be joining our class_.”

The other students - teenagers from various Latin American countries - stared blankly at the skinny, white ten-year old who stood at the front of the classroom.

“ _She’s a kid_ ,” said one boy derisively in Spanish. “ _What’s she doing here_?”

“ _Diana is very gifted for her age_ ,” the teacher replied. “ _It would be unwise - impossible, actually - for her to be in fourth grade with the other ten year olds, so she’ll be taking classes with the high schoolers._ _Say a few things about yourself, Diana._ ”

“ _My name is Diana LaFrenz, and I enjoy playing the violin and piano, reading Seneca, and mathematics. I was about to begin my studies of Hegel, until recent events caused me to be placed here.”_

The brief speech was given in the flawless, Argentine-accented Spanish that she had learned from Ms. Schelling. A branch of the Schelling family had immigrated to Argentina after World War II, for reasons that were considered impolite to discuss in public. Ms. Schelling learned Argentine Spanish from her South American relations, and she in turn taught Diana. This skill would proved invaluable at Diana’s latest destination, and for other events that would happen much later.

“ _That’s very interesting, Diana_ ,” the teacher said, alternately repulsed and fascinated to be in the presence of such an intellectually advanced child. “ _Where are you from_?”

The question made Diana uncomfortable, for she had no idea where she was from. Fortunately, she was saved from having to answer the question, when a female student interjected, “ _Isn’t it obvious, Ms. Delgado? She speaks with an Argentine accent. Her father is probably some rich landowner from the pampas or a politician in Buenos Aires_.”

“ _If her father was that rich, she wouldn’t be locked up with the rest of us_ ,” another girl said, causing scattered laughter to erupt among the other students.

“ _Now class, it’s not polite to speculate about that_ ,” the afore mentioned Ms. Delgado chided, although she was wondering the same thing. _“I’m sure Diana is going through a rough time like the rest of you. Please help Diana her feel welcome_. _You can take a seat, Diana._ ”

Diana quickly made her way to a vacant desk in the middle of the room, thankful to no longer be the center of attention. The other students stared at her for a moment before giving Ms. Delgado shreds of their attention. Ms. Delgado’s lesson was about trigonometry, a topic that Diana had mastered two years ago.

Noticing Diana’s visible boredom, Ms. Delgado said, “ _Since you’re so knowledgeable, why don’t you come to the board and show the class how it’s done_?”

Diana enthusiastically called Ms. Delgado’s bluff, running to the front of the class and covering the board with an array of formulas that were so complicated that even the teacher was baffled. She continued to dominate the class until the period ended, and she streamed out of the classroom, confident that her academic prowess would make her as popular among the other kids as it did when she performed for her parent’s friends on the _Naughty Bits_. What actually happened is that she was cornered by a gang of girls from the math class out the hall, who were furious at being shown up by an uppity ten-year old.

“ _I bet you think you’re better than us, blanqita_?” sneered the oldest, meanest looking girl. Although Diana was wiry and muscular from Ms. Schelling’s strict exercise regiment of calisthenics and swimming, she knew that there wasn’t much she could do against a mob of girls that were five to seven years older than her.

“ _Smarter, definitely_ ,” Diana said. “ _However, in terms of intrinsic worth, we’re all equal._ ”

“ _Shut up_!” said another girl, backhanding Diana. Realizing that parroting Ms. Schelling’s platitudes about the brotherhood of man would be insufficient to get her out of this situation unscathed, Diana tried a different approach.

“ _I can help you with your cases_ ,” Diana said.

“ _What_?” the ringleader said.

“ _I know about the legal system. How to work it, get an advantage over others. That sort of thing_.” In reality, the extent of Diana’s legal knowledge of the American legal system came from some impromptu conversations with a fat, pleasure-seeking judge who had attended several of Tommy and Sophie’s parties, and Ms. Schelling’s lectures on comparative politics. However, that was still more knowledge than anyone else had, and this peaked the interested of her would-be tormentors.

“ _For real_?” The mob participants lost their blood lust, and began to discuss among themselves what kind of help this young _blanquita_ might be able to provide.

“ _I can help you_ ,” said Diana. “ _But not if you beat me up_.”

The girls looked at her suspiciously, which Diana responded with an innocent smile.

“ _Why don’t we all just sit down, so you can explain...things to us_ ,” said the ringleader.

“ _It would be my pleasure_ ... _I don’t think I caught your name._ ”

“ _Dolores Rameriez Huerta_.”

“ _Dolores. I’d be glad to_.”

*

Diana quickly established a niche for herself in the hierarchy of the detention center by her ability to provide rudimentary legal advice to the other children. She explained the inner workings of the court to the other children, describe how one might use persuasion to negotiate with the judge, and describe legal precedents that might help them obtain a more favorable outcome for their respective cases. In exchange for Diana’s advice, her grateful supplicants performed her chores – a useful thing, as she had never done manual labor before and had no desire to start – thus freeing up her time to help more children from whom to solicit favors. Diana wasn’t sure if her advice was helpful in the long run, since all of the children ended up leaving the center for parts unknown and didn’t contact her to tell her what had happened to them, but when she and her clients parted company, they left satisfied, at least in the short-term.

Paradoxically, Diana was freer during her period of internment than when she was “on the outside.” Liberated from the insularity of Will ‘O The Wisp Farm and the deeply ingrained pathology of her parents’ social circle, Diana experienced her first genuine social interactions with children her own age, and even made a particular friend named Rafael Jimenez Vargas. The two met in the shelter’s library, when Diana was trying to find some recreational reading material. Diana was puzzled by the selection, as the works of Goethe, Schilling, and Mann were nowhere to be found, not even in translation, and she had never heard of _Harry Potter,_ _Twilight,_ or the other series books that were well-known to her peers. She gravitated towards the only titles she recognized, the Shakespearean plays and some Charles Dickens novels, although she had already read them.

“ _Aren’t you the Argentinian who gives legal advice_?” the boy asked Diana as she leafed through a dog-eared copy of _King Lear_.

“ _That’s what some people say_ ,” Diana replied coyly. Diana didn’t really know what nationality she was, but if being Argentinian made life easier for her, she wasn’t going to challenge this assumption. Changing the subject, Diana gestured to the _Harry Potter_ display and asked, “ _Have you heard of these books before_?”

“ _You haven’t heard of Harry Potter_?” the boy asked incredulously. “ _Even I’ve read Harry Potter, and I’m from a tiny village in Honduras_.”

“ _How’d you get here then?_ ”

“ _My father died a while back and my mom went to the US three years ago, but I don’t know what happened to her. I came over to find her, but I got caught crossing the border. It’s my second time._ ”

“ _What happened to your arm_?” Diana asked, looking at the empty sleeve where the boy’s left arm should have been.

“ _I was riding the trains through Central America and my arm got caught between a couple of the cars. That was the first time I tried coming to the US. What about you_?”

“ _My parents died and the police found out I was in the country illegally_ ,” Diana replied, trying to sound casual, while pushing the grotesque images of her parents’ deaths out of her mind.

“ _That’s it?_ ” the boy said, expecting more details. “ _Where were they from_?”

“ _Britain and France_ ,” Diana said, before she realized she had betrayed the details of her parentage. “ _But no one seems to know what my actual citizenship is. I don’t even think I have any family. Who knows what will happen to me..._ ”

The boy smiled, handed her one of the Harry Potter books and said, “ _Don’t worry about it._ ”

Diana smiled back and felt for the first time in her life that she had found a real friend.

*

While Rafael was lacking in formal education, he shared Diana’s passion for literature, and he was impressed by her knowledge of the Western literary canon. In turn, Rafael defended Diana from other children who tried to bully or mistreat her because of her eccentric ways. She told him the truth about her bizarre childhood and the circumstances that lead up to her imprisonment at the detention shelter, while he told her about his own dismal upbringing in a tiny Honduran village that was caught between warring drug gangs and corrupt government officials. They talked about everything and nothing, and often spend their time together in silence, content to simply be in each other’s company. Although Rafael’s knew very little English, he had an interest in Shakespeare and would ask Diana to read some of the Bard’s works to him in the original language.

“If we shadows have offended,” Diana said, beginning Puck’s famous soliloquy at the end of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. “Think but this, and all is mended/That you have but slumber'd here/While these visions did appear/And this weak and idle theme/No more yielding but a dream/Gentles, do not reprehend/if you pardon, we will mend/And, as I am an honest Puck/If we have unearned luck/Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue/We will make amends ere long/Else the Puck a liar call/So, good night unto you all./Give me your hands, if we be friends/And Robin shall restore amends.”

“ _That’s great_ ,” Rafael said approving. “ _And you didn’t even look at the book_.”

“ _I have a lot of things memorized_ ,” Diana said casually, closing the book.

“ _Why_?”

“ _Ms. Schelling made me commit a lot of texts to memory. She said that the lack of memorization in modern pedagogy has ruined education_.”

“ _I see,_ ” Rafael said, unsure of what _la pedagogía_ meant.

Diana provided an impromptu translation of the passage, one that wouldn’t have won her any awards for beauty or literal accuracy, but gave Rafael a general idea of what Puck was trying to say.

“ _I’ve never met anyone like you_ ,” Rafael said dreamily.

“ _Neither have I_ ,” Diana said. “ _Although that could be mostly because I haven’t really been around other kids. But I think that even if I had, that you’d still be the best one I ever met._ ” Used to suppressing her emotions, Diana was surprised at how forthright she had been.

“ _We probably won’t meet again after we get deported, will we_?”

“ _I doubt it._ ” Diana knew it was possible to find people online, but was doubtful that a rural Honduran like Rafael would have much of a web presence. She took a piece of paper and wrote, “I would not wish any companion in the world but you. -- William Shakespeare, The Tempest” with a rough Spanish translation underneath the English and her signature at the bottom. She gave the paper to Rafael and said, “ _Take this, so you’ll have something to remember me._ ”

Rafael looked at the paper, then folded it and put it in his pocket. He walked away quickly, not wanting Diana to see him cry.

Diana felt nauseous, but couldn’t explain why.

*

After spending four months at the detention center, the case of Diana LaFrenz finally came before the immigration court. Although she knew this day would be coming, Diana felt uncharacteristically anxious, because she had no idea what would happen to her. Though spartan and institutional, the detention shelter was comfortable and she was treated well, and she wasn’t eager to leave it for an unknown future. As she sat in the court galley with Rafael and some of the other undocumented children from the shelter, she wondered if she could be declared a ward of the state and live at the detention shelter indefinitely, until she remembered that the reason she was there at all was because the United States government was trying to kick her out of the country.

The judge called out, “Next case, please,” and Ms. Hendrix took Diana’s hand to guide her to the front of the courtroom. Diana snatched her hand away from the social worker and continued her walk alone. She looked backwards and saw Rafael wave at her, and she smiled back in response.

“State your name and age,” said the judge, when Diana took her place in the defendant’s box.

“Lady Diana Gauloises-Gitanes LaFrenz, Duchess of Hoffendorf,” the girl proclaimed. “Ten years of age.”

“I see,” the judge said, unimpressed by Diana’s titles. “Do you know why you’re in court, _Lady_ Diana?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been accused of unlawfully entering the United States.”

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“My only defense is that I was unaware that I was breaking any laws. Except for some trips abroad, I’ve spent my entire life at Will ‘O the Wisp Farm here in Washington State. My parents were the ones who arranged for my trips abroad. I knew that my parents weren’t born in the United States, but they seemed to spend so much time in the country - albeit not with me - that I thought they were citizens, and that I was also an American or at least had dual citizenship. Unlike my esteemed colleagues in the galley, I cannot say that entered this country to escape a war, a corrupt political system, drug violence, or poverty. I accepted that I am going to be deported, your honor. My only concern is where I will eventually end up, because I am not aware of any family member who could take care of me. Thank you, your honor.”

“What _is_ this child’s nationality, Ms. Hendriks?” the judge asked, impressed by Diana’s eloquence and forthrightness.

“It’s not entirely clear at this moment, your honor,” replied Ms. Hendriks. “Diana appears to have been born in international waters to a father who was a British citizen and a mother who held French citizenship. It’s believed that the mother may have taken British citizenship upon her marriage, but I’m not sure.”

“Where are the parents?”

“Both parents are recently deceased from acute intoxication of cocaine and heroin.”

“Where was the boat registered?”

“Great Britain, your honor.”

“Who is the next of kin for the defendant?”

“The next of kin is Diana’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Perceval LaFrenz V, Earl of Grimlyshire, who resides in Grimlyshire, England. I believe that it is in the best interest of the child that she be repatriated to Great Britain to live with the Earl of Grimlyshire.”

“How old is this Earl?”

“He’s quite elderly, your honor” admitted Ms. Hendriks. “Eighty-eight years old. However, the Earl is the only living family member we’ve been able to find on either the maternal or paternal sides. In spite of his age, I believe that he has the emotional and financial resources to care for Diana.”

“In light of these facts, this court declares that Diana Gauloises-Gitanes LaFrenz is to be deported to Great Britain to be in the custody of Earl Thomas Percieval LaFrenz V. Next case.”

That was the extent of Diana’s court date, the event that she had been waiting and fretting about for four months. After the judge made his pronouncement, Diana was whisked away in a government van to LAX with a one-way ticket to London to live with the “devilishly conservative” grandfather she had never met in a country she had never visited. As she left the courtroom, Diana looked back at Rafael, who gave her the thumbs up sign to reassure her before she began her journey. The two would not meet again for almost sixteen years.


	9. The Commodore

The Commodore

Diana arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport two days after the immigration court decided her fate. Accustomed to riding in limousines, private jets, and yachts in her previous life, Diana’s aristocratic sensibilities were offended by having to endure an eleven hour flight in economy class, sandwiched between an obese married couple who spend the whole flight complaining about their hemorrhoids. The only things Diana brought to her new homeland were the clothes on her back, a white polo-style shirt and khaki skirt that she received from the shelter, both of which were too small, her faithful Seneca book, and some coloring books that would have been appropriate for a dim-witted five-year old. No one at the shelter or the courthouse had explained to Diana what was supposed to happen when she arrived in her court-ordered homeland, and she hoped that there would at least be someone to meet her at the airport.

Diana had barely left the gate when a man a man dressed in the same clothes that Mr. Wolcott used to wear at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm ran up to her and asked, “Are you Lady Diana LaFrenz?”

“Yes,” Diana said hesitantly. “Who are you?”

“My name is Peter Ferguson, Butler to Earl LaFrenz,” the man said with a slight bow. “I’m here to take you to Whigby Hall.”

“How did you know who I am?”

“You have that LaFrenz look. It’s obvious.”

Mr. Ferguson escorted Diana to the car, a vintage Silver Cloud Rolls Royce limousine.

“You’re Lord Thomas’ daughter?” said Mr. Ferguson, as he helped Diana into the backseat of the limousine.

“Yes, sir,” Diana replied. “Did you ever meet him?”

“No. It’s my understanding that Lord Thomas left England in the late 1960s and never returned. I didn’t enter into service with Earl LaFrenz until 1998, after the death of his other son, the Honorable Michael LaFrenz.”

“Where are we going?” asked Diana, as she gaped at the sights of London rolling past her window. Although she had traveled extensively with her parents, the only things she ever saw were the insides of seedy nightspots.

“Grimlyshire, Lady Diana,” replied Mr. Ferguson. “It’s a cozy little village ninety minutes from London in Oxfordshire.”

“What is the Earl like? Is he nice?”

“He’s a fine gentleman, the kind that made this country great. I daresay we won’t see his kind for some time to come. It may surprise you to know that even though I’m in service, I don’t approve of this aristocracy business at all. Keeps the country back, if you ask me. If all the members of the House of Lords were like Earl LaFrenz, I’d change my mind.”

“If I’m supposed to live with the Earl, why haven’t I heard from him until now?”

“To be quite honest, the Earl didn’t know you existed until about a month ago when he was contacted by the United States Immigration and Customs agency. It’s my understanding that father and son haven’t spoken since the 1970s or so.”

Diana recalled Sophie mentioning that Tommy’s father had cut him off financially, and feared for a moment that she might be cast off as a reminder of her own father's wicked ways. Then she remembered that it would be highly unlikely that her grandfather would have a limousine met her at the airport if his intention was to get rid of her.

“Where exactly are we going?” Diana asked.

“The town of Grimlyshire in Oxfordshire, about ninety minutes away. It's not too far from Oxford University.”

“What's it like?”

“It's quaint, or backwards, depending on who you ask,” Mr. Ferguson chuckle. “We get a good number of tourists, though. The ones who want an authentically fake English experience. Lots of old-fashioned architecture and rolling green hills.”

This cursory description of Grimleyshire cheered Diana up, as it sounded not unlike the isolated spot of Washington State where Will 'O the Wisp Farm was located. She gaped out the window as the tall buildings and frenetic energy of London gradually changed into more sedate suburbs and eventually into the afore mentioned rolling green hills and neo-gothic facades of Grimlyshire. The Old World charm of her new hometown thrilled Diana, who thought she was entering a Chaucer story or a Wagnerian opera. Unbeknownst to Diana, the quasi-medieval buildings were of relatively recent vintage, erected by romantic medievalists during the Victorian era, but their attraction lay in their appearance, not their age.

After driving through Grimlyshire for about ten minutes, the car holding Mr. Ferguson and Diana reached Whigby Hall. Mr. Ferguson punched in a security code that opened the wrought iron gates that surrounded Whigby Hall, and proceeded to drive through a secret side entrance and parked the limousine in a small carriage house that housed the LaFrenz family’s extensive fleet of cars.

“The Earl is waiting for you in the lounge,” said Mr. Ferguson, as the two walked out of the carriage house. “I’ll show you where it is.”

Diana was accustomed to being in luxurious surroundings, but nothing prepared her for the grandeur of Whigby Hall. Will ‘O The Wisp Farm was an American’s idea of how the English landed gentry lived, whereas Whigby Hall was the real thing. The land devoted to woods and gardens at Whigby Hall - which included a “poison garden,” a hedge maze, a deer park, an English garden, a Chinese garden, a rose garden, a tulip garden, a vegetable garden and a zen garden - was greater than the entire property of Will ‘O The Wisp Farm. The stately home was named after the first Earl of Grimlyshire, Hugh Whigby LaFrenz, Whigby being the maiden name of his mother, Lady Eleanor Whigby. The house itself was built in the late 16th century in the English Renaissance style, a three story tall palace made of grayish-yellow stone and glass. Whigby Hall contained six rooftop pavilions, each festoned with a “LF” and the family crest. If driving through Grimlyshire was like being in a medieval tale for Diana, walking through Whigby Hall to meet her grandfather was a fairy tale come to life.

Mr. Ferguson and Diana walked through a long gallery that showcased art from the Northern Renaissance on one side and life-sized portraits of the previous Earls of Grimlyshire on the other, allowing Diana to witness five hundred years of British history through these paintings of her ancestors. The last portrait was that of the current Earl of Grimlyshire as a young man, his Royal Navy uniform visible under his coronation robes and an eyepatch over his left eye. He had the same movie star good looks that Tommy had possessed, but without the rough features attributed to decades of hard living. After leaving the gallery, Mr. Ferguson led Diana to a sitting room where an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair was being attended by two footmen. The man looked like an older, more sober, and undead version of Tommy.

“Earl LaFrenz, may I present the Lady Diana LaFrenz,” Mr. Ferguson announced.

Diana curtseyed instinctively, visualizing the recently departed Ms. Schelling’s switch hovering nearby.

“Earl LaFrenz,” Diane said after she rose. “I am honored to be in your presence.”

“No need for formalities, child,” the old man said mirthfully. “Just any variation on ‘grandfather’ will do. I see you’ve been brought up right. I’ve been talking with some American social workers about you.”

“I hope their assessment of my character was somewhat positive, sir.”

“They mentioned how advanced you were in your studies, how high you scored on your IQ test, how musically and linguistically gifted your are...”

Diana interrupted the Earl’s panegyric and said, “Mr. Ferguson said that you didn’t know I existed until recently. Why was that the case?”

“I had not talked to Tommy since the 1970s,” the Earl explained. “He was living in a way that I did not approve and I made that known to him. The social workers told me that you were aware of the lifestyle to which I am referring.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They also told me that you saw Tommy and his wife after they died.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Earl fell silent. “Do you think he died peacefully?” he said after a moment’s contemplation.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Diana replied honestly, recalling the contorted state of her father’s body. Changing the subject, Diana asked, “How do you manage such a large house, sir?”

“With a lot of servants and a lot of money, dear. After the war, the costs of maintaining a stately home skyrocketed. There were times in the 70s when I thought I’d have to donate it to Her Majesty’s Treasury to off-set the taxes and the maintenance costs. Fortunately, my younger son, Michael, started a very profitable research firm, and he used some of his money to help renovate and maintain the estate. Michael had a head for business, that one. I admit, I was initially opposed to Michael going into business. I believed in the traditional notion that a gentleman shouldn’t be involved with ‘trucking and bartering.’ I thought it would be more proper to pursue a naval career, like I did. But he certainly came through when I needed him. Since LF Tech was - and still is - a privately held company, I became the owner after Michael died, and I can use the profits to maintain Whigby Hall.”

“How did Uncle Michael die?” Diana had received a brief description of Michael LaFrenz's death from her father three years prior, but knowing what an unreliable narrator her father was, she wanted to hear the Commodore’s version of events.

“Tommy’s vices were drugs and fast women,” sighed the Commodore. “Michael’s weakness was for fast cars. He raced F-1 cars and was always tinkering with them to make them go faster. During his final race, he went so fast that he lost control and crashed. The rate of sped was so extreme that we barely had anything left to bury.” He seemed depressed after relating the tragic fate of his younger son.

“What’s going to happen now?” Diana asked, returning the conversation to herself.

“Now?” echoed the Commodore, happy to discuss a brighter future. “Well, you’ll be going to school, of course.”

“School?” Diana’s brief experience with organized education at the detention shelter left her unimpressed with the concept.

“Not in primary school, obviously,” the Earl assured her. “I’ve registered you to take the A-levels in a few weeks.”

“A-levels?”

“Tests you have to take to get into university. The social workers mentioned how bored you were in the high school classes, so you shouldn’t have any trouble. Once you pass, you’ll go to Oxford - which I’m sure you will - where generation of LaFrenzes have attended. At least, that was true until the previous generation.”

“Didn’t any of your children go to Oxford?”

“Sadly, no. Tommy...well, you know about Tommy. Not much for studies. Michael started but dropped out to start his business. Daphne didn’t go to university. It wasn’t common for women to be educated in those days. I think sometimes that I made a mistake with them...”

“Why?” asked Diana, who was already of the opinion that the Commodore could do no wrong. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They’re the ones who made the choices that killed them.”

“Maybe so,” the Commodore replied sadly. “But maybe if I had done things differently, their choices would have been different... Hmm. What do you know of your family, Diana?”

“The only thing Tommy told me was that his siblings were dead and that he was estranged from his father, who was ‘devilishly conservative,’ to use his words.”

“Devilishly conservative? I can see why he would say that. Continue.”

“Of my mother’s family,” Diana continued. “I know nothing, except that she was the heiress of some company in France and held a defunct German title.”

“I can’t tell you much about those Lebecs, except that the House of Lebec is a privately held company that has been in Sophie de Lebec’s paternal family for more than a hundred years. According to my lawyers, Sophie was the last of the Lebecs, making you the sole owner of the House of Lebec.”

“I see,” Diana said, although she didn’t understand what owning a company meant on a practical level. “What about the LaFrenzes?”

“The Earldom of LaFrenz was established in 1580 by Queen Elizabeth I. The first earl, Hugh Whigby LaFrenz was a great favorite of the Queen and was rewarded for his loyalty with a title.”

“Why are there so many Thomas Percevals?”

“It’s been a family name ever since the early 19th century when the first Thomas Percevial was a general at the Battle of Waterloo. The LaFrenzes - the men at least - have always been warriors. You can see that with our boys.”

“Our boys, sir?”

“These are our boys,” the Commodore said proudly, showing Diana a crumbling photograph of the LaFrenz family before the war. “The tall fellow in the back is the eldest, Thomas Perceival IV. The twins, Walter and Winston, are easy to spot, because they look identical. The young scrapper in the front is Edward, and that lad next to him is Henry, who my father.”

“Where are you?”

“I wasn’t born until after the war,” the Commodore replied with a chuckle. “I’m not that old, dear.”

“What happened to them?”

“Walter and Winston were killed in the First Battle of Ypres. The first to enlist and the first to die. Thomas Perceval IV died in the Gallipoli Campaign in 1916. Edward died in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. My father was injured in a mustard gas attack and had ‘trench foot’ in both feet, but survived. His case was so severe that both feet had to be amputated. This is what he looked like after the war, the only one of the boys to survive the war.”

The Commodore pulled out another old photograph from his pile, this time of a horribly disfigured man sitting in a chair, and a handsome but glum-looking woman standing next to the chair, holding a baby of indeterminate sex. The man’s face was covered in silver-dollar sized blisters and large bandages that covered his eyes. His hands were similarly affected, lying swollen and useless in his lap. A tartan blanket discreetly covered the lower part of his body, masking the man’s absent limbs.

“This was taken in early1923,” the Commodore explained. “As you’ve probably guessed, the woman in this photograph is my mother, formerly the Honorable Edith Danforth, eldest daughter of the Viscount of Tonesbury, and I’m the baby, not even a year old.”

“Why did your mother decide to marry your father?” Diana asked. “I mean, he didn’t have much of a face at this point...”

“You want to know how a woman could attracted to a man with no face and no feet?” the Commodore said bluntly. “I don’t think they were ‘in love.’ Marrying for love was still uncommon in those days. The simple fact is that her father, the Viscount of Tonesbury, was broke and needed to marry his daughters off to someone of a superior social and financial situation. There were many young men who were severely disfigured in those days, so my father’s case was by no means unique. My mother and father may not have had a great romance, but they appreciated each other’s company, which is more than many modern couples can say.”

“I don’t remember seeing your father in the gallery,” Diana said, staring at the picture and contemplating the nature of marriage.

“That’s because he’s not there. He died in 1938 from a blood infection. I didn’t become Earl until 1947.”

“Who will be the next Earl if there are no other males in the LaFrenz family?”

“You will, my dear. Upon my death, you will be the 14th Countess of LaFrenz and the title will pass to your descendants. Conveniently for both of us, the earldom of Grimlyshire is one of the few titles that can be passed on to a female.”

“Who are the other people in the picture?” Diana asked, wanting to change the subject from the unpleasant subject of the looming death of the only family she had.

“Oh yes. The man is the center, the fellow with the admirable set of baroque Victorian facial hair is the twelfth Lord of LaFrenz, Thomas Perceval LaFrenz III. Sitting next to him is his wife, Lady Margaret Privington, second daughter of Baron Snowdale. The two young ladies are the daughters of the family, Mary and Victoria, named after our fine queens, Victoria, who ruled in her own right, and Mary, wife of our dear king, George V. They were very close, almost like twins. Even closer than Walter and Winston, who actually were twins..”

“What happened to the Ladies Mary and Victoria?”

“They were volunteer nurses during the war and were scarred by what they saw in the hospital, and became increasingly despondent after the deaths of their brothers. They converted to Romanism and became Carmelite nuns in France. They died of tuberculosis within a few days of each other in 1939. My grandfather always said Mary and Victoria were very sensitive girls. He even said that maybe it was best that they died before the next war started.”

The Commodore seemed old and tired, as if he felt he had lived too long and seen too much.

“Enough of this sadness. Ferguson, give Lady Diana a tour of the grounds and then return for supper.”


	10. Wicked Parents and a Dutiful Granddaughter

Several weeks after her arrival in her new homeland, Diana took her A level exams for university admission soon after arriving in England and passed them all without studying. Thus, she entered Oxford University, the alma mater of her ancestors, and the youngest student to read mathematics at St. Rumwold College. Diana was so advanced that she really could have chosen to read anything she wanted, and simply chose mathematics, because it was something that she enjoyed doing for long periods of time, an attribute that she assumed would be useful at university. Because Grimlyshire was close to Oxford, Mr. Ferguson or one of the other servants would drive Diana to the university for classes in the morning and take her back to Whigby Hall in the afternoon. Diana was respected by the academic community for her intellectual prowess, but there was no one in the student body of St. Rumwold College that she considered a friend. Ms. Schelling had raised her to associate with adults, and the meaningless social rituals of university life bored her. Not that it would have mattered, since the other collegians had no interest in voluntarily associating with a ten year-old, particularly one who made them look stupid in comparison. The Commodore feared that Diana, who had already been prematurely exposed to the vices of the jet set, would be permanently corrupted by the debauchery of university social life, and he discouraged her from unnecessary fraternization with the other students.

Diana didn’t need much encouragement to avoid contact with the other students, for she preferred the company of her grandfather to anyone else. Having grown up in what was essentially a one-child orphanage, the girl was eager to have a family. In turn, the Commodore saw Diana, his only living descendant, as the savior of the House of LaFrenz, as she was the only thing that prevented the Earldom of Grimlyshire from going into abeyance. Although it was customary for a hereditary title to go to a male, the Commodore found Diana to be so intelligent, so well-bred, and so prudent - everything his own children had not been - that he couldn’t imagine anyone else being his heir. The two interacted more as peers than as a young child to a grandfather.

The primary bonding ritual that the Commodore and Diana engaged in was the worship of “our boys,” which could refer specifically to the LaFrenz men who were killed in World War I or generally to all British causalities from the two world wars. The two celebrated the mysteries of their private religion every Sunday (along with Mr. Ferguson, who pushed the Commodore’s wheelchair) when they visited Whigby Hall’s private cemetery. Like many World War I soldiers, the remains of Thomas Perceval IV, Edward, Winston, and Walter were never recovered, so their father honored their sacrifice by erecting a large cenotaph in the family cemetery. It consisted of four life-size bronze statues of the missing “boys” dressed in their army uniforms standing guard over a weeping British lion, all of which was surrounded by a semi-circular concrete fence. A slab in front of the lion read:

IN MEMORY OF OUR BOYS

THOMAS PERCEVIAL LAFRENZ IV (1888-1915)

EDWARD WILLIAM LAFRENZ (1891-1917)

WINSTON JAMES LAFRENZ (1893-1914)

WALTER JAMES LAFRENZ (1893-1914)

Next to the boys’ memorial was the shared double crypt of Mary and Victoria, whose bodies had been repatriated to England after World War II at the behest of their father. The final resting place of the women who had been biological sisters and sisters in religion was a marble art deco double sarcophagus, the top of which was decorated with the sleeping forms of the dead sisters in their Carmelite habits. The sides of the box contained a continuous frieze depicting the collective horrors of the two world wars. On the front of the crypt was inscribed:

PAX IN TERRAE

MARY LOUISA LAFRENZ (1886-1938)

VICTORIA DOROTHY LAFRENZ (1892-1938)

The visits to the graves of these doomed young people followed a set pattern. The three would stand quietly for a minute or two of silence, which was immediately followed by readings from the funeral rite in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer by Mr. Ferguson. After the prayers and scripture readings, Diana would lay a bouquet of fresh poppies on each memorial to replace the withered ones that had been placed the previous week. She would also place flowers on the grave of the Commodore's three children – Thomas Percival VI, Michael, and Daphne – and his wife Astrid, who had been the daughter of a Swedish naval officer from a noble background. When Diana placed the flowers on Tommy's grave, she had to hold her rage in check, noting that she was still giving of herself to her father and getting nothing in return.

If the cemetery visits were the equivalent of going to church for the Commodore and Diana, Remembrance Day was their Easter. The two would begin their day by visiting the cemetery for an hour of silent meditation on the life and death of “the boys.” After leaving the cemetery, they attended the Grimlyshire Remembrance Day memorial service at St. Frithuswith’s Church, which the Commodore had presided over every year since he became Earl. At the end of the program, Diana would take the podium to urge the younger residents to honor the sacrifices of their ancestors by working for a peaceful tomorrow. The townspeople were amazed by the girl’s poise and charisma, although they wondered where she came from and why she didn’t have a proper Oxbridge accent like the Commodore.

Diana’s strong emotions about “our boys” had nothing to do with patriotism; her unusual upbringing and disputed citizenship molded her into a cosmopolitan who was not attached to any particular people or nation. Rather, it was based on her intense desire to belong to a “normal” family, even if most of the members happened to be dead. While Diana was happy living her old-fashioned life with the Commodore, she had unwittingly recreated the same claustrophobic environment that she had once shared with Ms. Schelling at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm. Her interest in other people that she had developed at the detention shelter disappeared as she and the Commodore retreated into their own private world, where every day was Armistice Day.

*

As the de facto “Lady of the House,” Diana quickly learned the basics of how to be a good hostess, a necessity, given how many visitors the Commodore had. His friends were the same as himself; elderly members of the British aristocracy, often accompanied by their younger, more disinterested relations, who had no interest in maintaining the rituals of their elders. Although these pillars of society were fascinated by Diana’s intelligence and poise, they were more interested in finding out who her parents were and where she came from than listen to her talk about philosophy or math.

“I didn’t know you had a granddaughter, Earl LaFrenz,” said the Dowager Countess of Toppingham during an afternoon tea party at Whigby Hall that occurred about a year after her arrival.

“Neither did I, until a few months ago,” said the Commodore.

“Who’s her father?” asked the Earl of Snordon. “It certainly couldn’t be Michael; he’s been dead for years, although it’s not out of the question.”

“Diana’s father was Tommy,” said the Commodore.

“Tommy?” said the octogenarian Viscount of Eaves. “That wastrel? I shan’t be surprised to discover that he has dozens of children scattered all over the place.”

“He was always so  _ wicked _ ,” agreed the equally antediluvian Lady Eaves. “Do you even know that he  _ is  _ this girl’s father? Have you had a DNA test performed?”

Diana reddened. It was bad enough to be reminded that her father was “wicked,” even worse to have her paternity questioned by the social elite of the country.

“That’s not necessary,” the Commodore said, insulted by the turn the conversation had taken. “From what I understand, Tommy accepted her as his child and that’s good enough for me, and the family resemblance is strong.”

“I know you need an heir, LaFrenz,” said the Baron of Toppingham, son of the Dowager, whom seemed familiar to Diana, although she wasn’t sure why. “But it won’t do to pick up any stray blonde urchin who comes calling, will it? Sophie LaFrenz was a woman of loose morals, a libertine in every sense of the word. For all we know, Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Silvio Berlusconi could be her father.”

“Really?” said the Viscountess of Eaves, trying to examine Diana with her bad eyes. “She doesn’t look a bit Jewish or Italian...”

Diana felt lightheaded. Not even Sophie had deliberately humiliated her in public like this, even if for no other reason that doing so would have required her to acknowledge that even had a daughter. She felt the critical looks of the great lords and ladies of the realm on her, as they transferred the sins of her parents onto her shoulders.

“Will you stop this?” the Commodore said angrily. “There is not going to be any further discussion of this topic. Diana LaFrenz is my granddaughter and the heiress of the earldom of Grimlyshire, and that’s that. I don’t care what kind of a woman Sophie LaFrenz was, and I don’t care whether she had relations with one man, ten men, a thousand men, or no men. She’s dead, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. Now, move on to some other topic of discussion, or get the bloody hell out of my house!”

There was an embarrassed silence for a few moments before the guests moved on to safe topics, such as who did what on the polo fields. Diana stared at the Baron of Toppingham, and realized where she had seen him; he was none other than “Richard,” the man who charmed Sophie so many years ago when he said he was “capable of anything.” The tea continued on without incident until it was time for the guests to go. Before the Baron of Toppingham could leave, Diana approached him and said, “Excuse me sir. Do you have any suggestions for alternate candidates for my paternity?”

“How should I know?” he snapped.

“Since you seem to be so concerned about my parentage, sir. I assumed that you must be nominating yourself for that honor. I think if anyone would know, it would be you, since you are  _ capable of anything _ ,” Diana said, casually slipping into French at the end.

Toppingham paled and said, “Excuse me?” as the two locked eyes and Diana gave him a innocent smile tipped in venom.

“I seem to remember an occasion three years ago, during a New Year's party held by Lord and Lady LaFrenz, sir. You and about a dozen other men were in the company of a certain ‘woman of loose morals’ known to both of us, and you said you were  _ capable of anything _ , an attribute that the woman in question confirmed and seemed to enjoy. Of course, we both know the real fun didn’t start until the orgy...”

“What do you want, Diana?” Toppingham said in a low voice, furtively looking around to see if his mother, the Dowager Countess, was listening.

“I just wanted to see you squirm, sir. I know you and everyone else on that boat thought I didn’t know what was going on, sir, but that’s not the case. I know what you people are really like, the selves you hide behind Oxbridge accents, titles, and positions at Fortune 500 companies. Maybe what I really wanted to say, sir, is that you’re going to talk about people with loose morals, you should look in the mirror before talking about a dead woman who can’t defend herself. And, no, I don’t think you’re my father, Earl Toppingham; Thomas Perceival LaFrenz VI may have had many faults, but a receding hairline was not one of them, a fact that my male descendants will surely appreciate.”

“Richard dear,” shouted the Dowager Countess. “It’s time to go.”

“I’m coming, mummy,” Toppingham said submissively, scurrying away in shame and horror. As hateful as that tea was, Diana learned a lesson that she would carry for the rest of her life: better to be a stone-cold bitch and come out on top than be a saintly victim.

*

“Did you take care of that letter to the Duchess of Staffmarch, Diana?” the Commodore called from the bed where he was receiving his oxygen treatment.

“Yes Grandfather,” replied Diana. “I gave it to Mr. Ferguson to take to the post office the next time he goes into town. Is there anything else you want to have mailed?”

“Yes, please, if it’s not too much trouble. I want to send a letter to the Dowager Duchess of West Bingingham.”

“It’s no trouble at all, sir.”

Diana sat at the desk next to the Commodore’s bed where a fountain pen and paper lay ready, and began to write down the missive that her grandfather dictated to her.

The happy, claustrophobic, life of Thomas Percevial LaFrenz V and his granddaughter, Diana LaFrenz continued until the girl was almost sixteen. By this time, Diana had earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Oxford University. Convinced that she had accomplished everything that could be reasonably expected of a person, Diana retreated from public view to take care of her grandfather. The regular appearance of Diana and the Earl at the yearly Remembrance Day ceremony was the only indication that the people of Grimlyshire had that the two weren’t dead.

Intruding upon Diana’s complacency was the Commodore’s failing health. He had been fairly robust for his age when Diana arrived at Whigby Hall in 2010, but began to have serious breathing problems in 2014. The Commodore suffered from recurring bouts of pneumonia, but refused to be moved from Whigby Hall.

“I’m not going to waste away in some hospice,” he declared. “My father died at home, as did his father.”

Since the Commodore refused to go to the hospital, Diana tried to bring the hospital to Whigby Hall, using every service she could get from the National Health Service, while obtaining extras through under the table deals. She hired a doctor from St. Edward’s Municipal Hospital to make daily house calls, as well as a male home health aid to oversee the Commodore’s day-to-day needs. The Earl was paranoid about the possibility of elder abuse, so Diana was always present when the aide tended to the Commodore. When the aide tended to matters of personal hygiene, Diana sat in a chair with her back to the Commodore, so she could be within earshot if anything were to go wrong, without being exposed to her grandfather’s nakedness.

A normal teenager might have chafed at being the primary caretaker for an elderly relative, but Diana was content to fill this role. Having spent the bulk of her life in the care of others, Diana did her best to save the life of the man who gave her a sense of family and unconditional love.

“I feel so tired, Diana,” the Commodore sighed after he finished dictating his letter.

“I know, sir,” she assured him. “It’s okay. Just rest.”

“I can’t. I have to fight back death. If I lower my guard for a minute, death with take advantage of the situation and snatch me away.”

“Don’t talk about dying,” Diana insisted. “You’re not dying. This is just a minor setback.”

“If you say so,” the Commodore. He watched Diana put the letter in the envelope and affix the wax seal of the House of LaFrenz to the outside of the envelope. As she looked in the drawer of the desk for stamps, the Commodore said, “Do people even send letters anymore?”

“Not as much as they should, sir. People prefer sending emails and texts these days. Ms. Schelling said that a handwritten letter is a much more civilized means of communication, especially since many people don’t even bother to use correct punctuation and spelling.”

“You and your Ms. Schelling...the way you talk about her, one might almost think that you had some affection for that frosty old Hun.”

“She was the closest thing I had to a mother, so I can’t help but feel something for her, even though it’s probably misplaced.”

“Do you text?”

“Of course not. Who would I text? There’s no one on the outside with whom I’d want to communicate. Everything I want or need is here.”

“At some point, you’ll need to leave Whigby Hall. You’ll need to stand with the other peers at the Opening of Parliament, for example.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll be attending the Opening of Parliament for years to come.”

“I think you’ll be the one representing the House of LaFrenz at the 2016 Opening of Parliament. I...don’t think I’m long for this world.”

“Why would you say such a thing?” Diana asked nervously, her sweaty hands fumbling over the stamps.

“Surely you heard what the doctor said?”

“I’m not worried about it. Cancer is beatable. If you live long enough, you’re going to get cancer. We can go to the US and get some kind of experimental treatment.”

“Diana,” the Commodore said gently. “I’m not going to the United States. I just want to spend the rest of my days here.”

“Why couldn’t you go to the hospital?” Diana cried, dropping the letters on the floor. “They could have found it in time and...”

“I would have been pumped up with radiation and God knows what else. I’m ninety-five years old. What could they have done to extend my life? I’ve already outlived my parents, my wife, my children.”

“But you won’t outlive me,” Diana said, unable to restrain her tears. “What will I do? I’ll be all alone.”

“Don’t cry, dear,” the Commodore said. “You were practically grown up when you arrived her.”

“I wasn’t grown up, I was ten years old! I needed a real grown-up. You were the only grown-up I ever had, aside from Ms. Schelling who beat me for no reason. If Tommy left me with you instead of depositing me on that stupid farm, I could have had a normal life.”

“You’re right. But we weren’t on speaking terms. Maybe if we were, you could have grown up here. I guess that’s something else I should have done differently.”

“No, you’re fine,” shouted Diana, who was becoming increasingly hysterical.

“I think sometimes that I should have accepted Daphne and her plumber,” the Commodore continued, oblivious to Diana’s rapidly deteriorating state of mind. “He seemed like a decent chap, but he was an Irish Catholic. What would the Marquess of Southshire have said, to say nothing of Lady Sacks-Bowden? But if I had known that Daphne was going to kill herself, I would have been glad to let those old biddies gossip. These days peers marry all kinds of characters. Prince William himself married some middle class girl and one of those Scandinavian princesses married a personal trainer. If only I had known...”

“Don’t talk like this...”

“Where did I go wrong with Tommy? I think I was too distant. Too distant with all of them. Leaving children in the care of nannies and then shipping them off to boarding school isn’t good. Bad for their development. Doesn’t encourage family bonding and all that. That’s the traditional way we aristocrats raise children. But I see now that some of the old ways are rot.”

Seeing that his rambling was upsetting Diana, the Commodore turned towards her and said, “Will you read from  _ All Quiet on the Western Front _ ? It’s always been one of my favorites, even when I was in the Navy.”

“Of course.”

The letters were forgotten, and Diana and the Commodore immersed themselves in the world of the trenches and no-man’s land, remembering not just “our boys,” but everybody’s boys. After reading for two hours straight, the Western front went quiet, and Diana and the Commodore drifted off to sleep. When Diana awoke, she discovered that she was the only person in the room. The Commodore’s body lay in the bed, but his soul, consciousness, life force or whatever one chose to call it had departed some hours ago. Diana’s agonized screams brought Mr. Ferguson and the other high-ranking servants to the Commodore’s bedchambers. She was aware that they were talking to her, but her mind was unable to make out what they were saying. The only thing her mind knew was that she was alone again.


	11. The Return of Mr. (Now Sir) Paradim

“O God,” the Anglican priest intoned. “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to bless this grave to be the peaceful resting-place of the body of thy servant; through the same thy blessed Son, who is the resurrection and the life, and who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost; one God, world without end.”

“Amen,” the assembled said in unison, while the last shovelfuls of dirt were placed on the grave of Earl Thomas Perceval LaFrenz V. The funeral attendees – lords, ladies, bishops, politicians, naval officers, and others considered to be the pinnacle of British society – were lead away from the grave site by servants, while the Fourteenth Countess of Grimlyshire lingered, feeling alternately like she was in a dream and like someone was stomping on her already bruised and battered heart.

“Don't cry, little girl,” the priest said, voice dripping with mock concern and self-righteous smugness, as he tried to pull her into an embrace. “It was just his time to go.”

The Countess, who had recently reached her full adult height of five feet, ten inches, looked down at the priest with a withering look and said, “I'm not a little girl. And don't give me those ridiculous canned religious answers about death.”

“Think of this unfortunate event as an opportunity to begin thinking about the last things...”

“The last things are the last things I want to think about right now,” the Countess said, turning her back to the priest. _No wonder no one in this country goes to church anymore_ , she thought bitterly, as she made her way to the main house of Whigby Hall.

Once the Countess entered Whigby Hall's vast reception hall, the guests barraged her with fawning commentary on the virtues of the deceased earl, telling her what a fine gentleman the Commodore was, his devotion to Queen and Country, how he embodied good old-fashioned British values, etc. She smiled wanly at the crowd, remembered how these same people had nothing better to do than gossip about her “wicked parents” and questionable paternity, and retired to the room where the Commodore died so she could be alone. As she started at the wall in a mental stupor, the Countess was entrenched in an emotion that she had never experienced before: grief.

Diana felt many things after the death of her parents, but grief was not one of them, as the few interactions she had had with them were almost entirely negative. Ms. Schelling, the closest thing to a mother she had known, not only discouraged any thoughts Diana might have had about making her into a substitute maternal figure, but also prevented her from associating with anyone else. Her tutor’s love of corporeal punishment for the most minor infractions, real and imagined, caused Diana to wonder if there was something defective about her character that compelled Ms. Schelling to beat her so much. The Commodore was the only person to tell Diana that she was loved and that her presence was appreciated. Now that he was dead, Diana realized that she was was completely alone, physically and emotionally. She recalled the white knight of her childhood, Mr. Paradim, her eccentric music teacher Mr. Cherblinko, or her friend Rafael from the detention center, but accepted that, like the Commodore, they were phantoms from the past that she would never see again.

The Countess picked up a celebrity magazine located on the table and front of her, and turned to the photo spread that she had posed for a week earlier. Once the world learned that the world's youngest billionaire was a telegenic, blonde, sixteen year-old girl, the Countess had been inundated with requests from the media. The Countess granted an exclusive to one of the more fluffy celebrity magazines, the type that wouldn't pry too deeply into the more sordid aspect of her life history. She smiled a bit as she looked at the pictures, noting how great she looked, especially when compared to the haggard looking photos of movie starlets in the “Celebrities...Just Like Us!” section. While she considered the photo shoot to be beneath someone of her intelligence, it had provided a much needed diversion from her dire situation, and she regarded it as a sort of paid dress-up session.

When the funeral was over, the Countess knew that lawyers, social workers, psychologists and other busybodies would swarm into her life, ostensibly to protect her poor orphaned self from the big, bad adult world. The Countess didn't think she needed anyone to help her run her life, but British law insisted that a youngster could only manage his or her affairs independently at eighteen, and not a moment sooner. She thought it was a ridiculous law, but there was no way out of it; the British state was positive that it needed to help Countess Diana LaFrenz plan her future, whether she wanted it or not.

*

While the new Countess of Grimlyshire wallowed in inherited wealth, self-pity, and depression, her old friend Paradim was still hard at work networking, albeit with a very different set of people than the types who used to frequent the _Naughty Bits_.

“You have such a lovely home, Dr. Zulander,” Paradim observed, looking around at the modest home and trying to disguise his contempt for what he regarded as middle class American banality on parade. “I’m glad to know that young Ziv has such a supportive family. It must be difficult, being so young and so brilliant.”

“We try,” said Yael Zulander, mother of the afore mentioned Ziv, a painfully shy auburn-haired boy of fifteen, who was leaning up against his mother for moral support. The entire Zulander family – father Dr. Andrew Zulander, mother Yael Zulander, Bitya, a fussy red-haired baby who whimpered and cried non-stop, and young Ziv, who was clinging onto his mother as if his life depended on it – was seated on a couch, while Paradim sat across from them on an ottoman. Paradim was already annoyed with Ziv, who seemed unable to answer the simplest questions by himself, and wondered why the Zulander parents would choose to have a baby again after a fifteen year gap.

Out loud, Paradim said, “Ziv and Bitya are unusual names. Where do they come from?”

“Oh, we didn't make them up, if that's what you're asking,” Andrew laughed. “No 'kreativ' names in this house. Ziv and Bitya are both Modern Hebrew names, though we usually called Bitya 'Blitzy' and Ziv is ZZ. Yael is originally from Israel. We met back in the 1990s when I was on an archaeological dig and I happened to see her at a 'Peace Now' protest. When the tear gas was deployed, we were in the same hospital unit, and we've been inseparable ever since.”

“I see,” Paradim said, inwardly rolling his eyes at the Zulanders' peacenik love story. “Anyway, when I heard about these Auto Activated Androbots Ziv invented at the Young Scientist Talent Search. I knew that I was looking at the product that's going to revolutionize the twenty-first century. More than the Internet, more than social media, more than cell phones.”

“But no one else thinks so!” Ziv said in a fit of pique and outrage that his talents were thus far unrecognized. “I couldn't get a single company interested in my 3A. I won first prize, and they still thought it was 'just a toy.'” Realizing his outburst, Ziv shrank back into the couch and buried his face in his mother's shoulder.

“That's only because most people still think of robotics as experimental,” Paradim said. “We at the Corp already understand that robotics are the wave of the future, and I think these 3As as you call them have enormous commercial potential. That's why I want to buy your patent for the 3A. In turn, Ziv would get an internship at the Corp, and receive mentoring from our top R&D scientist, Dr. Charles Hiss. I understand that Ziv's already working on a PhD from CalTech?”

“That's right, Sir Paradim,” Dr. Zulander said.

“The research Ziv would be doing at the Corp would be of great help to him as he works on his thesis. Plus, with the Corp taking care of the business end of marketing and building 3As, Ziv could just be left alone to invent and work on his studies.”

“Is this a good idea?” Yael asked, as Blitzy started to pull at her hair and wriggled restlessly. “Ziv would be giving over the rights to everything he's worked so hard on.”

“As private citizens, you could never hope to mass produce 3As by yourselves, much less market and license them. You could spend all of your time and money just wading though red tape at the patent office. Most inventions never make any money, precisely because inventors tend not to be business oriented. Believe me, this is the best thing for Ziv and this entire family. Not only do you get a lump sum for the 3A patent, but Ziv gets a foot in the door of the industrial R&D world. There are plenty of inventors who would kill for this kind of deal”

Paradim wrote out a check, and presented it to Andrew and Yael Zulander. The check amount was small for what the 3A patent was worth actually worth, but none of the Zulanders had ever had seen a check with that many zeros in their life, and that was enough to convinced them to sell.

“It's a deal,” Andrew and Yael said simultaneously.

“Ziv, what do you think?” Paradim asked to the putative subject of the conversation, who was transfixed by the pages of a glossy celebrity magazine. Upon realizing that he had been spoken to, the young genius mumbled something incoherent.

“What’re you looking at?” Paradim asked, annoyed that Ziv had decided to check out of the conversation to read a trashy tabloid.

“Nothing, sir,” mumbled Ziv, stashing the magazine behind a cushion. Paradim reached behind Ziv, retrieved the magazine, and opened it up to the section marked by a folded corner that had so peaked the boy's interest. He saw that the marked section was a two page splash pictorial entitled "Kid Billions."

“He’s had his eye on this girl he saw in this magazine,” Andrew explained somewhat apologetically. “Some British girl whose grandfather just died and she inherited his titles and his money. Very attractive and smart as a whip, so they say, but I keep telling Ziv that a girl like that exists in a different world than us, and would never be interested in 'ordinary people.'”

“You don't know that,” Ziv said indignantly, while Paradim scanned the“Kid Billions” article and found that it was about a certain sixteen-year old girl named Diana LaFrenz, who had not only become the Countess of Grimlyshire, but was now the youngest billionaire in the world. The text was content-free, eliminating the details about the Countess' isolated, pressure cooker childhood, the monkey attack, Tommy and Sophia's sordid deaths, and the deportation, preferring to focus instead on the perceived glamour of her palatial estate and her equally striking physical appearance. Like her mother, the Countess had the natural poise and grace of a model, but lacked the vacuousness that characterized the late Lady LaFrenz; the Countess' expression in each picture was a half-smirk that suggested that she knew that the entire photo shoot was ridiculous, and that the reader was equally ridiculous for wanting to look at the pictures. Paradim knew at once that his next destination had to be Grimlyshire, England.

“Well, this discussion has been most fruitful, but I have other business to attend to,” Paradim said, getting up from the ottoman to get his coat, while the baby began screaming in earnest. “My lawyers and Dr. Hiss will contact you shortly about the particulars of the sale and the terms of Ziv's internship. I bid you good day.”

Yael handed the baby to Ziv, so she and Andrew saw their guest to the door. He absent-mindedly bounced the baby on his knee, while looking wistfully at the magazine photos of the beautiful, mysterious, and unattainable “Kid Billions.”

*

“State your name and business, sir.”

“Sir Lewis Leon Paradim. I made an appointment to see the Countess regarding her RM Corp stock.”

“The Countess will see you shortly.”

Paradim sat in the visitor's lounge of Whigby Hall, trying to figure out what he was going to say to the Countess that would make this visit worth his while. She held the most stock in the Corp after Paradim himself, and he hoped that he could convince her to sell it to him so he could be the majority stockholder. However, Paradim knew that the Countess was too worldly to hand over her stock just because an older man who had once been nice to her requested it of her. Unlike the Zulanders, whom he regarded as naive peons ripe for the picking, Paradim didn't want to exploit or take advantage of the Countess. For reasons that he was unable to articulate, Paradim had been fascinated by the Countess since her unexpected entrance into the world, a day which happened to coincide with the birth of the RM Corp, and each of their subsequent meetings not only reinforced the notion that she was uniquely special but that her fate was tied up with his own. Paradim was dead-set on assimilating her into his world, whether she wanted it or not.

After waiting a few minutes, the Countess staggered into the lounge and sat down on a chair opposite Paradim. The little girl had turned into a stunning beauty, something that was even more obvious upon seeing her in person. In spite of her external sexiness, Paradim still saw the frightened seven year old he met almost ten years ago.

“Countess, it’s so good to see you,” enthused Paradim. “I haven’t seen you since your seventh birthday.”

“Thank you, Mr. Paradim,” the Countess replied, paling slightly at the mention of that inauspicious day. “I also appreciate the flowers you sent me when I was in the hospital.”

“Think nothing of it. I only regret that I didn’t do more to keep in touch with you. Of course, from what I understand, your Ms. Schelling wouldn’t have approved of your corresponding with a man old enough to be your father.”

“No, she wouldn’t have Mr. Paradim,” agreed the Countess. “Although I haven’t seen Ms. Schelling since I left the United States.”

“It’s  _ Sir _ Paradim, now,” Paradim said, hoping to impress the Countess. “I became a Knight Bachelor last year.”

“The Commodore said that the knighthoods are handed out like candy these days,” Diana replied dismissively.

“There’s probably some truth to that,” agreed Paradim. “But let me assure you that I earned my knighthood in a worthy manner.”

“I would be curious to find out what you did to earn your knighthood, Sir Paradim, especially since your accent indicates that you’re not from the British Isles.”

“Like you, my dear Countess, I spent most of my formative years on the other side of the pond. My parents were both English, but my father owned a computer hardware company in California, one that would eventually evolve into a proto-version of the RM Corp. I didn’t come to England until my father sent me to boarding school when I was twelve. Regarding the question of how I received my knighthood, much of that was the result of my leadership during the Hacker Wars.”

“There was a war?” Diana asked, confusedly.

“Yes. A lot has happened in two years: the Hacker War, the Great Middle Eastern Armistice, the Bot Revolution, the World Convergence. You’re completely out of the loop, my dear Countess.”

“I...haven’t left Whigby Hall in almost two years, sir. Well, I take that back. We would go for walks in the gardens and visit the boys in the cemetary.”

“But you never left the property.”

“We attended the Remembrance Day services at St. Frithuswith’s, sir. I also went to court to have myself declared a legally emancipated minor, but I didn’t pay much attention to the news.”

“Surely the Commodore must have subscribed to a newspaper or watched TV...”

“He used to subscribed to the Times of London, but said that said the press had gone to rot since Murdoch got control of it. He didn’t own a TV either, sir. At least, not one that works.”

“What about the Internet?”

“The Commodore didn’t own a computer and Ms. Schelling said that there’s nothing on the Internet but pornography and useless cat pictures.”

“Cat pictures, maybe, but the pornography is gone. All thanks to me.”

“You can’t legislate the Internet,” the Countess replied with a dismissively sip of her tea.

“ _ I _ did,” Paradim answered smugly. “I purged the Internet of the smut, intellectual property theft, counterfeit goods, bogus male enhancement supplements, criminal subcultures, and libelous commentary that characterized the ‘Old Internet’ of the past, not unlike how Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City.”

“I don’t understand, sir. Isn’t the Internet a sort of international free speech zone?”

“Not since the Hacker War in 2014. The hacker subculture was getting out of hand, moving from targeting Scientologists and credit card companies to bringing the Middle East to the brink of war. I formed an international coalition of business, governmental, and military interests called the Allied Force For Internet Security to fight against the hackers, and I brought our case to the United Nations, using the principle of universal jurisdiction.”

“If I may interrupt your account, Sir Paradim,” the Countess interjected. “Universal jurisdiction applies specifically to states, and the RM Corp is a corporation, and thus a non-state actor.”

“What you say is true, Countess,” replied Paradim. “But the actions of the hackers and the other online undesirables were crimes against the safety of the world community, not just against the RM Corp. After much debate, the United Nations concluded that it was no longer feasible or advisable to have the Internet continue as a lawless zone. The AFFIS morphed into the International Convention on Internet Security, and a multinational Internet Peacekeeping Force was formed to police the Internet.”

“How is that possible?”

“The actual IPF consists of sophisticated Internet bots that comb the web for offending materials. The bots are controlled from IPF centers that are located in undisclosed areas in each country. When the bots find something illicit, they swarm the offender’s computers, cell phones, tablets, and other Internet capable devices and render them inoperable. The offender’s IP address is send to the nearest bricks and mortar IPF office, and they’ll eventually be arrested.”

“Doesn’t each country have its own standards for what could be considered ‘illicit,’ Sir Paradim?

“True, but the International Convention on Internet Security outlines the bare minimum of what constitutes an offense: child pornography, counterfeit goods, advocating terrorism, being a member of a hacking gang. After that, each country can set its own standards. Television and radio are both regulated at the national level; why shouldn’t the Internet? Naturally, the hackers and their civil libertarian friends disliked the idea that they couldn’t just do or say whatever they wanted under the anonymous cloak of the Internet, and they tried to overthrow the IDF. It wasn’t just hacking a web page or stealing credit card numbers; the electricity grid was downed in some countries, emergency lines were disturbed, there were car accidents when the electronics under the hood were hacked. People were afraid to leave their homes. There were some who wanted me to back down, but I refused. I knew this lawlessness had to stop and I was determined to see this to the end. The attacks merely reinforced what I - and the other members of the AFFIS - had said about the need to clamp down on Internet lawlessness. The hackers were no match against the combined might of the world community. And that, my dear Countess, is how I become a knight.”

“This is quite interesting, but I doubt you came all the way from California to discuss current affairs.”

“No, I didn’t. I came here to discuss your RM Corp stock.”

“What about it?”

“I want to buy it back from you.”

“No,” Diana said firmly. “The Commodore left it to me, and I have no intention of selling it. It’s also the only thing that my father gave me that was actually useful. I may not have been watching the news during my two-year confinement - which I undertook voluntarily - but I was very cognoscente of the Commodore’s finances. The RM Corp stock is the most valuable asset in the LaFrenz portfolio, much more so than LF Tech and even the House of Lebec. I would have to be a fool to sell it. You wasted your time if this was all you wanted to ask me, Sir Paradim.”

“Of course, Countess,” Paradim said hastily, trying to think of something else he could offer her. “That’s why I’m offering you something better. What do you plan to do after your period of mourning ends?”

“What?”

“What are you going to do for the rest of your life? You can’t just sit around in a perpetual state of morning like Queen Victoria.”

“I guess I could be the distaff version of an gentleman farmer...”

“You’re sixteen years old, Countess. Not even a legal adult. Can you really say you want to be stuck on this estate for the rest of your life?”

“Why not? Whigby Hall is almost a thousand acres. I have everything I want here: books, horses, gardens, art. My portfolio is so valuable that I have no need to work. The House of Lebec alone is enough to sustain Whigby Hall indefinitely.”

“You’ll get bored sitting around at Whigby Hall. Someone as smart as you will never be satisfied giving dinner parties for senile aristocrats.”

“It’s not so bad,” the Countess insisted, like she was trying to convince herself that this was true.

“At some point you’ll need to get married and have an heir to continue the line,” Paradim pressed. “You’re not going to meet anyone shut up in here.”

“I can come and go as I please, Sir Paradim. As you mentioned before, I’m only sixteen and I’ll have plenty of time to think about marriage in the future. Right now, I think my life is sufficient here at Whigby Hall.”

“I see great things in your future, Countess,” Paradim said, transfixing the girl with his yellowish-green eyes. “I could tell even when you were seven years old. I want you to come back to the United States and work at the Corp.”

“Work at the Corp?” echoed the Countess in astonishment. “Doing what?”

“You own the most RM Corp stock - after myself, of course - so it’s only natural that you’d be an executive.”

“An executive at sixteen? That’s absurd.”

“Well, not right now. You should go to law school. You’d be nineteen or twenty when you finish.”

“I’ve have enough of school, Sir Paradim. Why do I need a law degree?”

“I need a lawyer.”

“You should be able to afford the best lawyer, Sir Paradim.”

“You are the best.”

“Now you’re just flattering me, Sir Paradim. My only experience with the legal system was when I was deported, and by most standards that would be regarded as a failure.”

“How can I be a lawyer when my background is in mathematics, Sir Paradim? No reputable university would take me.”

“There’s no set program for going to law school, at least not in the United States. Law schools want students who are well-rounded, and there is no one who is more broadly educated than you. Even as a child, you could talk about any subject to any person.”

“What would I do after I finish law school?”

“You would take your rightful place doing what you were always meant to be.”

“Which is?”

“Rule the world.”

“Excuse me?”

Paradim hastily clarified his previous statement with, “That is to say, you have the killer instinct needed to be a winner in the corporate world. You’re just like your Uncle Michael, only... more so.”

“Just like Michael?” The Countess liked the idea of being like Michael, the savior of Whigby Hall. “But no one is going to respect a teenager.”

“Not an ordinary teenager, but you’ve never been ordinary, have you, Countess?”

“I suppose not, Sir Paradim.”

“I’m always looking to cultivate talent among the best and brightest. There’s a boy about your age whose about to start working as an intern at the Corp while he takes graduate classes at Cal Tech. Have you heard of Ziv Zulander?”

“No,” the Countess replied, although the name seemed vaguely familiar.

“He invented this amazing invention called the 3A: Auto Activated Androbots. They're fully autonomous robots that can perform a wide variety of tasks. It going to revolutionize society to the point where the chattering classes are talking about a ‘Bot Revolution,’ akin to the Industrial Revolution or the Information Revolution.”

“If 3As are so revolutionary, why isn’t Mr. Zulander running his own company?”

“Young Mr. Zulander is nothing like you, Countess. You’re a woman of the world and Zulander is a naive, pathologically shy, little boy. It’s kind of sad, really. His parents are the same way; very intelligent, but too trusting. None of the Zulanders know anything about business or how to market a product. As you probably know, Countess, most patents don’t make money. The RM Corp has been on the forefront of artificial intelligence for almost sixteen years, so it was natural that he would approach me to ensure that his venture would succeed. He sold the patent rights to the Corp in exchange for a promising future as a robotics engineer in one of the world’s most dynamic companies.”

“How would your...scheme for me work, Sir Paradim?” the Countess asked, wondering whether young Mr. Zulander had received a fair deal.

“You would come to the United States and study for a few years so you gain a greater understanding of how various political, legal, and economic systems work, and when you’re finished you’ll join the Corp.”

When Paradim saw that the Countess was wavering, he added, “What do you have to lose? You don’t have anything else to do, and you can quit and return to Whigby Hall whenever you want.”

“You make a convincing argument, Sir Paradim. I will accept your offer, albeit with reservations.”

“Please Countess, I know Ms. Schelling taught you to be formal, but let’s drop the use of honorifics and last names. Call me LLP, like my friends do, for I have always counted you as someone important to me.”

“All right...LLP,” the Countess said, feeling uncomfortable with this new form of address.

“Excellent,” replied Paradim, flashing her a gummy, lupine smile. “Of course, you’ll need a different name once you start working at the Corp.

“Why?” the Countess said in dismay. “The Commodore expects me to carry the LaFrenz name proudly.”

“Of course he does,” Paradim said patronizingly. “But it would be too confusing for the public to have another blonde, English aristocrat named Lady Diana.”

“If there were any other British noblewomen named Diana, I’m sure I would know about them.”

“Surely you’ve heard of Lady Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales?”

“Oh  _ that  _ Lady Diana,” the Countess replied dismissively. “Ms. Schelling said that Princess Diana represented everything that was wrong with late twentieth century Western society in that she embodied the twin obsessions of celebrity and victimhood.”

“Perhaps, but Princess Diana is an iconic figure. If you’re going to carve out your own niche, you’ll need a unique nome de guerre. You won’t be changing your name in a legal sense, you’ll just have a different name with which to conduct your business affairs.”

“I guess that makes sense...” the Countess said, although she wasn’t enthused about the idea.

“You’ll be referred to in public simply as ‘Lady’ rather than Countess. The man on the street understands that the title ‘Lady’ is associated with the aristocracy, but ‘Countess’ might be too esoteric.”

“I have a title in my own right, LLP,” the Countess said. “Two, if you count the defunct Duchy of Hoffendorf. I don’t want the average person to think that I’m just someone’s granddaughter or a member of the impoverished gentry.”

“Do you really think the average American - or Briton for that matter - knows the difference between a ‘Lady’ and a ‘Countess’?”

“Probably not,” the Countess admitted.

“You’ll drop the ‘La’ part from LaFrenz.”

“And what’s the rationale for that?”

“No one will respect you if you have an alliterated name.”

“So now I’m Lady Frenz?” asked the Countess, with a touch of bemusement. “How is that superior to Countess Diana LaFrenz? Lady Frenz sounds like a K-Pop band or a line of feminine hygiene products.”

“Yes, a surname that ends with a z-sound is rather unappealing... well, just add a vowel to the end and you get ‘Frenzy.’ I think that works.”

“Lady Frenzy? That sounds like the name of a pornographic movie.”

“It’s the perfect name,” Paradim insisted. “There won’t be another Lady Frenzy in the world. You can continue to be Diana LaFrenz at law school. You’ll only become Lady Frenzy when you formally join the Corp.”

Countess Diana LaFrenz still had her misgivings about this venture, but she had nothing better to do with her life, and law school seemed to be as good a choice as any at this point.


	12. First Impressions

“This is my city, Lady Frenzy,” Paradim said proudly. “I built all of this. Mega City is a cross between an old-fashioned company town and a modern employee-friendly corporation in the Silicon Valley mold.”

“I see,” Frenzy replied, stretching her neck to look at Mega City through the limousine’s tinted windows.

“Before I established the RM Corp, all of what you see was an urban wasteland: crack houses, abandoned buildings, dope dealers and prostitutes doing ‘business’ in broad daylight. People said I was a fool for building in such a destitute area, but I was able to take advantage of the foreclosure crisis in the late 2000s to accumulate land at fire sale prices.”

“What about the people who used to live here?” Frenzy asked, scanning the sleek, ultra-modern landscape for signs of the working poor culture that existed not too long ago.

“Who knows?”

“Where is the RM Corp itself?”

“It’s located in the center of Mega City in a complex called RM Corp City. It’s sort of like what the City of London is to London proper. Mega City is growing at a rate that hasn’t been seen since the early twentieth century. People are streaming in from across of the globe to work here. It’s probably terrible to say this, but the worldwide recession has been very good to the RM Corp, because there’s no shortage of talented people eager for a job.”

“Won’t mass robotization exacerbate the recession by causing structural unemployment?”

“Perhaps, but progress cannot be stopped. Should Henry Ford have closed up shop just because some buggy makers would have been unemployed? The economy will restructure itself, just as farmers become factory workers during the Industrial Revolution. You wouldn’t say that slavery should have been retained just to give people jobs, would you?”

“No...”

“Bots are liberating people from the drone-like work that has kept billions of people condemned to waste their lives in meaningless, stultifying work. There are plenty of jobs inside and outside the RM Corp for bots maintenance technicians and other skilled laborers. The elimination of low-skilled jobs will benefit everyone in the long-term.”

“The RM Corp tower looks like it’s still under construction,” Frenzy noted, examining the scaffolding and cranes that surrounded the top of the building.

“It’s slated to be finished next year. When the RM Corp tower is finished, it will be the tallest building in the world, although many of the floors will be underground.”

“It looks very modernist. Almost like a connected version of the old World Trade Center.”

“I like the modernist aesthetic.”

“Aren’t you afraid that such a tall building could meet the same fate as the old World Trade Center?”

“No. Unlike that late, lamented edifice, the RM Corp Tower has a security force that could take down an army, much less an errant passenger jet.”

Frenzy was about to ask how a cadre of glorified mall cops could be of any help against terrorists, when the limo reached its destination in the executive parking garage, and Paradim beckoned her outside, so the two could continue their tour on foot.

“Are you afraid?”

“No, I’m not afraid of anything, LLP. Why would I?”

“Some of the older workers who remember 9-11 feel uncomfortable by such a large building. They feel like it will tempt fate or something like that.”

“I don’t believe in fate. Humans make their own destinies.”

“That’s the spirit,” Paradim said admirably. “Here’s the floor for Dr. Hiss’ lab. He’s in charge of the R&D department. Young Mr. Zulander is his assistant.”

“How interesting,” Frenzy remarked. She had never met someone her own age who was her intellectual equal, and was curious to know what Mr. Zulander was like.

*

Ziv Zulander was uncomfortable in his own skin, a situation that wasn’t helped by the oily, crater-like state of the epidermis in question. He was a small, auburn-haired boy with a high voice that was in a state of perpetual flux, arms that were too long for his body, and a mouth filled with a tangle of metal and rubber. Ziv’s classmates at Cal Tech interpreted his natural shyness as a sign of arrogance, using his age as an excuse for barring him from their social gatherings. His new colleagues at the RM Corp, particularly his superior Dr. Hiss, were condescending at best and outright insulting at worst. Most importantly, Ziv couldn’t get a date for Saturday’s “Spring Fling” Dance at the Santa Marta Recreation Center. Earlier in the week, he had asked Millie Ramsey if she would go with him, and she responded with the “I like you as a friend but not a boyfriend” speech, which was followed by the somewhat embarrassed admission that she was planning to be the date of Dakota “Brick” Anderson, the quarterback at Santa Marta High School. Bereft of respect from his peers, Ziv found solace in his family and his inventions. His parents were his biggest cheerleaders, nurturing and supporting his talents and encouraging him when he was discouraged by his failures in socialization. Ziv tried to accentuate the positive in his life, especially when he was on the receiving end of one of Dr. Hiss’ black moods.

“Act sharp, Zulander,” Dr. Hiss barked. “Sir Lewis is going to be visiting soon with one of the major shareholders and I don’t want you messing anything up.”

“Yes, Dr. Hiss,” Ziv replied obediently.

Dr. Hiss was a small man, only two inches taller than Ziv, darkly handsome, with thick black hair that was parted in the middle, and an aquiline nose. He was short-tempered, anti-social, vindictive, and sociopathic, qualities that were useful for rising through the ranks of a cutthroat organization like the RM Corp. Hiss supplemented his natural genius with plagiarism, theft, and outright fabrications. He had been on the verge of inventing his own general purpose autonomous robot when young Ziv patented the 3A, and resented that Paradim forced him to mentor the boy who beat him at his own game.

“We need to make a good impression on Sir Lewis,” Dr. Hiss said, turning his attention to a pile of spare bot parts. “He’s still irritated about last month’s failure with the experimental laser gun.”

“Sir Lewis Leon Paradim and Lady Frenzy to see Dr. Hiss,” interrupted a receptionist bot through the laboratory’s intercom system.

“Send them in,” Hiss answered.

“Lady Frenzy?” Ziv asked himself, as the door opened. Was this the same girl he had seen in the magazine several weeks prior?

“Ziv Zulander, Dr. Hiss,” said Paradim. “I want you to meet Lady Frenzy.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen,” Lady Frenzy said, looking around the laboratory with the detached interest.

“Likewise,” growled Dr. Hiss, who had already decided that he hated Lady Frenzy as everything about her – the haute couture outfit, the curvaceous figure, the ample bosom, the long blonde hair – screamed out ignorant celebutant.

Lady Frenzy walked up to Ziv, who came up to her shoulder, and examined him like he was an insect mounted on a piece of paper. Although the two were roughly the same age, the casual observer never would have known this based on sight; Ziv was a weak, stringy boy in the middle of a rough adolescence, whereas Lady Frenzy was a ripening beauty who still had yet to achieve the fullness of her glory.

The rational part of Ziv’s brain told him to say hello to his future boss, but boy’s reptile brain was only interested in staring at the amazing specimen of woman who stood before him, especially her well-formed breasts which were conveniently located at his eye level.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Sir Paradim, Mr. Zulander,” the girl said, looking down at him from her elevated height, disappointed that the young Mr. Zulander was so gawky and immature.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Ziv said, his voice cracking two times as he spoke. “You look like your pictures in magazines and the Internet, only...more so.”

“You expect me to take orders from this child?” Dr. Hiss snapped. “It’s bad enough that I have to deal with Ziv Zulander smelling like Noxema and desperation, but now I’m supposed to kowtow to a teenage bimbo?”

Ziv was used to Dr. Hiss’ abuse, and looked at his shoes nervously, while casting furtive glances at Lady Frenzy. However, Frenzy operated under the assumption that she was the intellectual and social better of almost everyone she met, and took offense at Hiss’ slights against her youth and physical appearance.

“This alleged ‘bimbo’ has two degrees from Oxford University,” Frenzy said, hoping to put Hiss in his place.

“Whoever I decide to appoint as an executive is no business of yours, Dr. Hiss,” Paradim said, his lupine eyes narrowing dangerously. “Besides, Lady Frenzy will not be joining us for a few years. When that time comes, I expect you to give her the same respect that you show me.”

“Yes, Sir Lewis,” Hiss said through gritted teeth, as Lady Frenzy smirked triumphantly at her new rival.

“Good,” Paradim said, pleased at his subordinate’s quick capitulation. “Come, Lady Frenzy. There’s still much to see.”

“It was pleasant to meet you, Dr. Hiss, Mr. Zulander,” Frenzy replied in the superficially polite tone that she had mastered during dozens of childhood cocktail parties.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Ziv mumbled, while his boss simply glared at the girl.

“Please don’t call me ‘ma’am,’ Mr. Zulander,” Frenzy said benevolently. “I’m not old enough to be a ‘ma’am’ yet.”

“Yes, Lady Frenzy.”

After Paradim and Lady Frenzy left Hiss’ laboratory, Ziv wondered if he would ever have a chance with Frenzy or if he was wasting his time on wishful thinking. Was she really that different from “ordinary people” or was it possible that she might show an interest in him when/if he outgrew this awkward stage? He awoke from him reverie when Hiss snapped, “Get back to work, Zulander! We’ve wasted enough time already!”

“Yes, Dr. Hiss,” Ziv said, returning to his workstation.

*

“How was work, ZZ?” Yael asked, using her son’s nickname. The family was eating dinner together, as per their usual routine, and both Yael and Andrew noticed that their son was even more absent-minded than usual.

“Fine,” Ziv answered dreamily, unable to forget the image of Lady Frenzy.

“The televiewer says that girl who owns all that RM Corp stock visited today. Did you meet her?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you think of her?” said Yael. “She’s supposed to be very accomplished.”

“She’s very well-developed...mentally, I mean. Lady Frenzy is very clever.”

“Is she as pretty as you thought she'd be?” Yael pressed.

“She’s okay,” Ziv replied, staring blankly at Blitzy, who whimpered unhappily.

After Yael excused herself to change the baby, Andrew turned to his son and asked, “What do you really think of Lady Frenzy, ZZ?”

“I think I’m in love.”


	13. Ars Amandi, Part 1: A Woman-Child in Love

Visions of Lady Frenzy would fill Ziv Zulander’s mind for years to come, but the object of his affection thought little of him during her time away from the Corp. Her hopes of meeting a like-minded individual in Ziv Zulander ended when she met him in the flesh, and realized that a woman of the world like herself could never find anything in common with such an awkward man-child. After her short tour of Mega City, Lady Frenzy entered Stanford Law School as Diana LaFrenz, where she quickly forgot about the RM Corp’s gawky boy genius, and focused on creating a new life in California. Accustomed to the cold, rainy climates of Washington State and Great Britain, Diana was fascinated by the perpetually temperate weather of southern California. Unlike her experiences at Oxford, where she was constantly shadowed by Mr. Ferguson and sequestered in a claustrophobic estate, Diana was allowed to explore Palo Alto freely as a regular, albeit very wealthy, person. She could also craft a new identity, where no one knew or cared about her “wicked” parents and their lurid lifestyle.

Since the British government still regarded her as a minor, Paradim, who had dual British and American citizenship, stepped in to have himself declared her guardian for legal purposes. However, Paradim considered Diana an emancipated minor for all intents and purposes, and therefore didn't mind when she asked him to help her rent a spacious five bedroom house within driving distance of the Stanford campus, so she could continue living in the manner to which she had become accustomed. Paradim graciously provided her with some servant bots as a housewarming gift. Diana would have preferred hiring a human staff, but Paradim assured her that bots would be cheaper and more amenable to her busy lifestyle.

“The house practically takes care of itself when you have bot workers,” Paradim said, as the maid bots tidied up the living room while he and Diana had tea. “They can work all day and you don’t have to worry about them stealing from you.”

“The servants never stole from us at Whigby Hall, LLP,” Diana replied, sipping her tea. “They never had to resort to theft, because the Commodore gave them whatever they wanted. Besides, Uncle Michael put adhesive microchips on all the valuables so if anything did get stolen, we’d be able to recover them.”

“That may be true, but I’d advise you to start phasing out the human staff at Whigby Hall or just fire them en masse. It’s an unnecessary expense. The other stately homes are doing the same thing.”

“Unlike the other stately homes, Whigby Hall has income coming in from LF Tech, the House of LeBec, and my RM Corp stock, so I can afford to hire as many servants as I want,” Diana countered. “I agree that it would be best to have bot workers here, but I’m going to retain all the human servants at Whigby Hall.”

“If that’s what you desire,” Paradim said, glaring at her over his teacup. Although Diana could sense that Paradim was personally offended by her rebuff, the truth was that she didn’t relish the prospect of being the only human on a thousand acre estate.

“Just don’t get involved with any boys,” Paradim added, recalling his horror when they were touring the Stanford campus and he realized that boys were noticing Diana and she was noticing them back. Paradim suspected that the closed environment at Whigby Hall and the lack of same age suitors at Oxford caused Diana to repress or simply ignore her sexuality when she was in England, but now that she was older and in a more open setting, she was anxious to make up for lost time in terms of exploring the carnal side of life. This wasn’t a shock to Paradim, but the last thing he wanted was for his protégé to derail her career with inappropriate relationships.

“None?” Diana said, sounding dismayed.

“You’re only sixteen, which makes you jailbait, pardon my French,” Paradim said. “Any guy who’d be interested in you is going to be a pervert, so don’t waste your time.”

“It seems like now would be a good time to start socializing with people,” Diana pointed out. “On the plane, you said you wanted me to become more knowledgeable about how people my own age act, and this is a good way to do that.”

“There are other ways to do that.”

“Like what?”

“Like...going to a football game.”

“Are you referring to what Americans call football or what everyone else calls football?”

“Either one, it doesn’t matter.”

“Ms. Schelling said that sports are the opium of the masses, even more so than religion, and they divert attention from the arts and sciences.”

“Why don’t you find out for yourself, rather than rely on the opinions of your passionless nursemaid?”

“I’ve been to sporting events before. Tommy once took me to a Real Madrid game when we were in Spain and I’ve been to games for the football team I personally own, Grimlyshire United. I just don’t find them to be interesting.”

“Why don’t you join a sorority?”

“The last thing I need is a hundred drinking buddies, LLP.”

“Couldn’t you at least dress like a normal college student?”

“The minute I took off that government issued khaki skirt and polo shirt when I first came to Grimlyshire, I swore I was never going to wear someone else’s clothes again.” Diana stood out among her female peers, not just for her natural beauty, but for her personal style. While the other girls dressed in the unofficial female collegiate uniform of short-shorts and t-shirts, Diana, armed in haute couture from the House of Lebec’s English-inspired “Anglica Collection,” looked like she just got off the runway. Because of the formality that ruled Diana’s life at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm and Whigby Hall, she was accustomed to dressing up for the most insignificant events and it never would have occurred to her to go out in sweatpants or even blue jeans. The male students would have said that Diana looked like a young Grace Kelly with larger breasts, if they had known who the late Princess of Monaco was. Since most of them did not, they only knew that Diana LaFrenz was “classy” and “hot.”

“I’m not asking you to wear someone else’s clothes,” Paradim said, exasperated at the conversation. “Just to dress more casually so you don’t stand out as much.”

“What’s wrong with standing out?”

“Are you trying to be difficult? Because if you are, you’re succeeding,” Paradim snapped, wishing that she was more pliant like Ziv Zulander, who looked like a child and acted like a child, and didn’t have any illusions about how he should be treated by the world, whereas Diana LaFrenz had the intellect of an elderly college professor, in the body of a twenty-one year-old model, with the emotional maturity of a twelve-year old.

“I’m sorry, LLP,” Diana said remorsefully. “I promise nothing will happen.”

*

Diana didn’t intend to break her promise to Paradim, but her desire to please her mentor couldn’t hide the fact that she was eagerly looking for love, lust, or some mixture of the two. She reasoned that she wouldn’t actively pursue a relationship, but if someone interesting should happen to cross her path in the normal course of human events, then it would be foolish not advantage of the situation. Her first experience with what she thought was love occurred two weeks after her talk with Paradim, when Max Christian von Krueger barged into her life. She was first acquainted with the young prince when he saw her sitting by herself in the cafeteria reading Thomas Mann’s _The Magic Mountain_ (in German) and eating a pack of sushi.

“ _Is this seat taken_?” asked a handsome young man in German. He with an athletic build, and light brown hair that was clipped short in a buzz cut. His accent suggested that he was from Berlin.

“ _No_ ,” Diana replied in German, without looking at her interlocutor.

“ _Do you mind if I sit down_?”

“ _Go right ahead_.”

“ _You’re Diana LaFrenz, right? I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I saw your photos in the press. Do you want to go out with me?_ ”

“ _I don’t even know you_ ,” Diana said, putting down her book to face the annoyingly forward youth sitting on the other side of the table.

“ _Prince Max Christian von Krueger, eighteen years old_ ,” he said, his voice stopping and starting like Morse code. “ _Computer science major, class of 2020. Originally from Baden-Baden, Germany. Second son of Prince Karl Friedrich von Krueger and Princess Gertrude von Krueger. Older brother, Prince Wolf Rainer, younger sister Princess Maria Teresa. Heir of the Krueger Chemicalworks.._ ”

“ _But you’re not a real prince, are you_ ?” Diana asked skeptically. “ _T_ _here hasn’t been a nobility in Germany since the end of World War I_.”

“ _Not in a legal sense, but my family is of noble blood, like yours. We were Junkers during the empire_.”

“ _The last time I checked, Junker and Prince were not synonyms. You’re just being a poser_.”

“ _You obviously have a very active mind. I think we should talk over this interesting topic at dinner_.”

“ _I’m not going to waste my time at some club_ ,” Diana said, recalling all the hole in the wall clubs Tommy and Sophie dragged her to as a child.

“ _Of course not_ ,” her would-be-suitor replied hastily, indicating that was exactly what he had in mind. “ _I know you’re used to a certain standard of living, so I won’t waste your time with pizza and the cinema like the other guys here. Where do you want to go_?”

“ _The only place that would interest me would be somewhere like the opera or the symphony_.”

“ _Then I’ll get some tickets_.”

“ _I can’t go. It’s a school night and I have a lot to do_.”

“ _It’s a school night_?” Max echoed mockingly. “ _You sound like a high schooler. I have a hard time believing that law school is hard for someone as gifted as you_.”

“ _It’s not_ ,” Diana answered truthfully. The semester had barely started and Diana was already bored with law school. Prior to her enrollment at Stanford, Diana only other experience of being in a classroom was when she attended the high school at the detention shelter. Diana had spent the bulk of her academic career studying under Ms. Schelling’s intense academic regime, Oxford’s tutorial system, in which and several other students she met with an academic tutor to discuss their work was more bearable, but being in an American style classroom, where she was herded into a tiny with twenty other students of varying abilities seemed like an inefficient way to learn.

“ _I bet you can do your assignments in your sleep. It wouldn’t hurt you to have a little fun. If I procure some tickets for the Symphony this weekend, will you go with me_?”

“ _Fine. Will you go now_?”

“ _I’ll pick you up on Saturday and you’ll gave a great time_.”

“ _We’ll see about that_ ,” said Diana, returning to her book and her sushi.

*

Diana forgot about her date with Max, until her maid bot informed her that a Max Christian von Krueger had arrived while she was studying contracts. She was about to say, “Max who?” when she remembered the guy who kept annoying her during lunch several days prior. She was about to go tell him off when Max forced his way into the house, dressed in a suit and tie.

“ _Are you ready for your date? I have tickets for a recital tonight for a performance of Richard Wagner’s Wessendonck Lieder and Brunnhilde’s Immolation Scene. You like Wagner, right? You seem like the Wagnerian type_.”

“ _I have to study contracts_.”

“ _You said if I got some tickets, you’d come_.”

“ _I guess I’ll go, just to be polite, but I’m going home as soon as the concert is over_.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Max said, ushering Diana out the door.

*

Diana spent the bulk of the concert involuntarily squirming in her seat, because every time she tried to get comfortable, Max would try to hold her hand, play footsie with her, put his arm around her shoulders, or engage in some other action that was a complete violation of her personal space. She wondered if Max had any real interest in Wagner or if this was just a pretext to put her in a situation where he could manhandle her. Despite her exasperation with Max, there was another part of Diana that wondered if he could be “the one” she was looking for. True, he was irritating, but didn’t everyone have some faults that needed to be smoothed out? Because of her strange upbringing, Diana had little experience being around individuals of her own age, and she wondered if the annoyance she felt towards Max was simply a normal part of the courtship process, something that most people learned to deal with in middle school, rather than law school. There was a brief pause in the program, when the singer finished performing the third song in the Wesendonck lieder cycle, and prepared for the fourth. Max used the pause to casually grasp her right hand and whisper in German, “ _Enjoying yourself?”_

 _“It’s fine_ ,” Diana replied diffidently, freeing her hand.

Diana was well-acquainted with the Wesendonck Lieder, but as she listened the fourth lieder, _Schmerzen_ (Anguish), she felt like she was hearing it for the first time. Maybe it was the lighting, the way the piano was tuned, the remembrance of her long loneliness, or just teenage hormones run amok, but when Diana heard, “ And if Death gives rise only to Life/ And pain gives way only to bliss/O how thankful I am, that/Nature gives me such anguish!” she decided, that she would -- no, _must_ \-- date Max. She felt like Wagner, the Master himself, demanded no less than from her. Without thinking about it, Diana impetuously kissed Max on the cheek. Max squeezed her hand in response, which she didn’t shake away, although she still didn’t like the way his hand felt on her skin.

When the concert was over, Max impetuously kissed Diana on the mouth as the other members of the audience scrambled to the parking lot. Unsure how she should respond, Diana instinctively pulled away from her erstwhile date.

“ _Is something wrong_?” asked Prince Max.

“ _No, it’s nothing...I just haven’t been kissed before_.”

“ _Not ever_?”

“ _By a boy in a romantic way, I mean_ ,” Diana said, rambling as her mind tried to process what was happening. “ _My father kissed me sometimes, but I’m not sure it he meant it. My grandfather kissed me, too. He meant it, but this is a completely different context. My upbringing was unusual. I never had an opportunity to date. I was a child when I was at Oxford, which mean that anyone who was sexually interested in me was a pervert. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anybody at Oxford molested me or was sexually interested in me, but_...”

Prince Max silenced her with another kiss, this one more passionate than the first.

“ _What do you think about non-grandpa kissing_?” Prince Max said after he was done.

“ _I think I’m liking it more and more. I just_...”

“ _Just what_?”

“ _I just feel self-conscious because I’m almost seventeen and have no experience with this_.”

“ _You’re fine. You just need practice. You’ve shown that you can pick up academics quite easily. Think of the art of love as another skill to be proficient_.”

Turning away from Prince Max in embarrassment, Diana said, “I _’m not even sure I’m really smart. The only reason I was able to go to Oxford at such a young age was because of my tutor, who beat the knowledge into me. If I had had a more normal childhood, I probably be just another blonde with too much money and not enough brains_.”

Max shrugged and said, “ _So what? Most intelligent people are blessed with a good education. If you didn’t have some inherent ability, you wouldn’t have been able to learn anything, regardless of how much you were beaten. You’re perfect the way you are_.”

“ _I don’t know_...” Diana replied, recalling her mother’s disdain for her.

“ _Let me show you_...” Max said, leaning in for another kiss, one that Diana didn’t resist.

*

“You seem quite chipper,” Paradim remarked to his young protégé during their weekly Sunday meeting at his mansion.

“I am, because I’m in love, LLP,” Diana declared with the certainty that only a sixteen-year old could have.

“In love?” Paradim echoed disapprovingly.

“Yes, but don’t worry. I haven’t slacked off on my work.”

“Who’s the lucky man?”

“Max Christian von Krueger.”

“I would suggest you stay away from this ‘Max Christian von Krueger,’ character,” Paradim advised her.

“What?” Diana said, alarmed that her father figure didn’t share her admiration for the new man in her life. “Why?”

“He’s dead weight, just another trust fund baby.”

“He has to be somewhat intelligent to be at Stanford.”

“Stanford is like a finishing school for kids like Max von Krueger. He probably sleeps till noon, only goes to class on test days, and has beer and Froot Loops for breakfast.”

“I’m sure he’s not like that,” Diana said, remembering how sensitive Prince Max had been the previous night.

“I know he is, because the prep schools I attended were full of nothing but Maxes. Any rich idiot can get into a top school if they have a legacy or enough money to buy their way in. As dumb as your father was, he had a slot at Oxford waiting for him. He could have showed up at any point in his life and he would have been welcomed with open arms. If you get involved with Max, you’d just be dating your father.”

“Max isn’t like that,” Diana insisted.

“He is just ‘like that.’ You’ll see.”


	14. Ars Amandi, Part 2: A Woman-Child Scorned

A week after their night at the opera, Prince Max moved into Diana’s house. In keeping with aristocratic tradition, Diana slept in one of the main bedrooms while Max stayed in the guest room, and they would come together in the master bedroom when they felt amorous, which in the heady days of new love, was quite often. Although Diana found Max’s romantic technique to be underwhelming, she thought that bad sex was an acceptable exchange for someone who loved her, and assumed it would improve over time.

“I understand that you’re Diana’s...boyfriend,” Paradim said during his weekly visit, unwilling to hide his disdain.

“Yes, sir,” Max replied gravely.

“You’ve moved in with Diana too, I understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that a sixteen-year old and a eighteen-year old sharing a house with no adult on the premises is a recipe for disaster, in addition to being against the law.”

“I know it’s a bit...unorthodox,” Diana said. “But I think I’m a mature, level-headed young lady acting in a rational manner. Most of the women my age at Stanford already have a couple of boyfriends under their proverbial belts.”

“I assume you know that most ‘women’ your age are in high school and live with their parents,” Paradim replied sarcastically.

“That’s true,” Diana admitted. “But I’ve always been advanced. It’s not illogical for a woman to want a relationship. My grandfather told me that even Ms. Schelling got married.”

“There is no similarity between your situation and Ms. Schelling,” Paradim said in exasperation. “She was in her mid-thirties when she got married and you’re not even eighteen. And you’re not ‘advanced’ socially, because if you were you wouldn’t have allowed this person to move in with you.”

“Why not? I’ve got several university degrees, I have an independent source of income, and I own several houses, not counting the one I’m renting here in Palo Alto. By most metrics, I’d be considered a fully functioning adult.”

“But you’re not an adult,” Paradim said in exasperation. “You may be mature enough to manage your finances - which you do quite well - but you’re not old enough to be in a relationship like this.”

“So...Are you Diana’s father or something?” Max asked, nervous about how much the word “marriage” was being bandied about in the conversation.

“No, no, I’m not Diana’s father,” Paradim replied with a hint of amusement. “She’s probably told you that her biological father died some years ago.”

“Yeah, she did, so I don’t understand where you fit into this.”

“You might say I’m a father figure of sorts. I give Diana advice. What are you’re intentions, young man?”

“To graduate, I guess.”

“No, I mean with Diana.”

“To go out, have fun, stuff like that...” Max said, trying to gauge what the correct answer was.

“I see,” Paradim said, narrowing his eyes. “Whatever trajectory this relationship takes, just remember that if anything happens to Diana, you will pay for it, dearly.”

Diana noted how lucky she was to have someone like Paradim to guide her through life, while Max wondered what kind of situation he had gotten himself into.

*

For the first two weeks of Max’s occupancy at Casa LaFrenz, Diana was so besotted with Max that she was more than willing to overlook the flaws in her boyfriend’s personality: his laziness, his indifferent housekeeping abilities, his lack of intellectual curiosity, his inability to use the right fork at dinner. However, Diana quickly realized that not only did she not love Max, she didn’t even like him very much. Although Max had faked enough interest in the opera to worm his way into Diana’s affections, once he reached his goal, he resisted any further attempts to sample the fine arts. However, she was afraid of going back to her former solitary existence and tried to put up with Max’s boorishness in the hopes that some of her culture might rub off on him, which would cause her previous feelings of infatuation to return. However, after putting up with Max for six weeks, an incident occurred between the two that permanently soured their relationship.

“ _What the hell is that_?” Max said, poking the back of Diana’s ear where her scar was.

“ _What’s what_?” Diana replied irritably. The two were in bed, after another disappointing encounter (from her perspective), and she was trying to figure out what it was about sex that made ordinary people so eager to do it.

“ _This thing behind your ear_ ,” he said, jabbing her harder and harder.

“ _It’s a scar from a childhood accident. Quit poking me and go to sleep_.”

“ _What kind of accident causes a scar like this_?”

“ _An animal attack_.”

“ _A dog? What kind of dog tears off an ear? If you get bitten by a dog, you’d probably have scars on your arms or your legs_.”

“ _I never said I was attacked by a dog_ ,” Diana said, becoming increasingly agitated about having to talk about an event that she made a point not to think about.

“ _What then_?”

“ _A monkey, okay? Now will you please shut up_?”

“ _A monkey_?” Max echoed, making no effort to hide his laughter at the revelation. “ _What happened? Did you piss off an organ grinder? Bad experience at the petting zoo_?”

“ _Shut up_!”

“ _If you can’t see the humor in a monkey attack, you’re not thinking hard enough_.”

“ _There’s nothing funny about an enraged primate trying to rip your face off_.”

“ _It’s hilarious when it’s happening to someone else_.”

Diana got out of bed and got dressed, while Max continued laughing and jeering at her scar and the circumstances under which it was produced.

“ _I’m going to call you ‘Scarface’ from now on_ ,” Max declared, between giggles. “ _Scarface, get me a beer. Scarface, make me a sandwich_.”

“ _I would never fetch you a beer nor get you a sandwich_ ,” Diana replied icily, as she straightened her clothes in front of a full-length mirror. “ _You’re perfectly capable of doing those things yourself_.”

“ _Or maybe Van Gogh is better. I bet you looked like crazy Van Gogh in the hospital, with the bandages_...”

“ _Why are you doing this_?” Diana said, facing Max directly. “ _I thought you loved me_.”

“ _Who said I loved you_?” Max’s cavalier disregard for Diana’s feelings infuriated her. Granted, Diana didn’t love Max either, but if he didn’t love her, there was no justification for his continued occupancy at Casa LaFrenz. Fully dressed, she began throwing Max’s clothes and other personal belongings in a pile on the floor.

“ _Hey, what’re you doing_?” Max demanded.

“ _I’m removing your things, because you’re not living here anymore_ ,” Diana said calmly.

“ _What_?”

“ _I said get out_.”

“ _I don’t like this attitude you’re developing_ ,” Max said, getting up in Diana’s face.

“ _I like yours even less. Leave before I call the police._ ”

“ _Can’t I at least get dressed_?” Max pleaded, for he was only clad in boxer shorts and a pair of mismatched socks.

Diana tossed his clothes out of the window and into the street and said, “ _If you want them so much, go get them_.”

As Max ran outside to gather his belongings, Diana closed the door behind him. Upon realizing that he had been shut out, Max ran back and demanded re-entry, but Diana ignored him, drowning out his pleas by an impromptu rendition of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.

*

Diana thought she was done with Max, but her former suitor had other ideas. Two days after Max’s eviction, Diana returned home after class to find Max sitting at her grand piano, idly plunking on the keys with a suitcase at his side.

“ _You’re a lucky girl_ ,” Max said smugly, before Diana had time to respond to his uninvited presence. “ _I’ve decided to forgive you for your irrational conduct towards me_.”

“ _Why are you here when I clearly told you that you weren’t welcome anymore_?”

“ _I know you didn’t mean it, you were just upset about that ear thing_.”

“ _What part of ‘get out’ are you not understanding_?”

Max smirked and pulled her into a rough embrace. “ _You don’t know what you’re saying. If I leave, I taking my loving with me_.”

“ _At this point, I’d prefer solitude to your perverse brand of ‘loving,’_ ” Diana shot back, breaking away from Max’s when he tried to kiss her. “ _If you don’t leave in thirty seconds, I’m calling the police. Besides, you’re a terrible kisser, among other things_.”

“ _How would you know_?” Max shouted, furious that his virility had been insulted. “ _You said you hadn’t been with anyone else_.”

“ _Let me put it to you in terms you can understand_ ,” Diana said condescendingly. “ _Imagine that you’ve got some oaf lying on top of you demanding that you tell him how great he is while you’re waiting for something to happen and nothing ever does_.”

Max backhanded Diana, causing her to stagger a few steps backward. Without thinking, she grabbed a large coffee table book entitled, _Great Tapestries of Twelfth Century France_ ,and threw it at Max, hitting him in the middle of his face. Diana ran to the master bedroom, where she barricaded the door with an ottoman, an armchair, and her steamer trunk. She pulled out her cell phone and called the only person she felt she could trust.

“Hello, LLP, it’s me,” Diana said quickly in English, before Paradim could exchange banal pleasantries with her. “I have a problem. Max and I got into a fight because he was angry that I kicked him out and he slapped me and I threw a book at him and his nose is bleeding and I don’t know what to do and...”

Diana’s run-on sentence was interrupted by tumult on the other side of her door. The time that Diana spent creating her makeshift barricade was enough for Max to recover from his injuries and look for her.

“ _You think you’re gonna get rid of me that easy_?” shouted Max in German.

“Help me, LLP,” Diana pleaded. “He’s trying to break down the door and he said he’s going to kill me and I don’t know what to do.”

“Call the police first,” Paradim said calmly. “I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“How can you?” Diana wailed, as Max flung German obscenities at her through the door. “Los Angeles is six hours away.”

“It just so happens that I’m in Palo Alto scouting talent. I’ll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, call the police.”

“Okay. Please hurry.”

Diana called 911 as Paradim suggested, emphasizing that she believed her life to be in danger. After terminating the call, Diana realized that the banging and swearing had dissipated. Hoping that Max had finally left, Diana was about to leave the room, when she heard a metallic clink coming from the window that was opposite the bed upon which she sat. She turned around and saw Max standing outside the windowpane, perched somewhat precariously on the top step of a ladder.

“ _Bet you thought I’d given up_?” Max leered.

Diana screamed and gave Max a hard shove, causing him to lose his balance and fall on the slanted tiled roof outside of the window. He attempted to climb up the roof to the window, but the slope was too steep and he fell on top of Diana’s Porsche (a birthday present from Paradim) that was parked outside the house.

Terrified that she had actually killed Max, Diana called Paradim again.

“I think I killed Max...” Diana said, before Paradim could respond.

“What?”

“He tried to come in through the window and I pushed him and he fell on my car.”

“Well, uh...is he making any noise?”

“Yes. He’s shouting and cursing me out.”

“He can’t be in too badly hurt, if he has that much energy. Be calm. I’m just around the corner.”

Diana fretted for a few minutes before going outside to meet Paradim. She sat on a bench near Max and the ruined car, seemingly oblivious to the multi-lingual invective that her ex-boyfriend was hurling at her in his injured state, and wondering why was it so hard for her to have a normal relationship, romantic or otherwise, with another person?

Diana’s existential angst was interrupted when she Paradim exiting from his limousine, while a police bot squad car followed closely behind. He observed the lurid scene, and remarked, “Disgusting.”

“I have no idea how this happened, LLP,” Diana said, half-serious, half-coy.

“You said you pushed him out of a window. What’s not to understand?”

“What happened, miss?” the police bot interrupted.

“I kicked this person out two days ago, and he decided to come back, even though I had made my intentions known the first time. We exchanged words and he struck me. I responded - purely as a matter of self-defense, of course - by hitting him with a book. I ran upstairs to call the police, and he tried to enter the room through a window. That’s when I pushed him.”

“You need to come to the police station to fill out a crime report and to be questioned.”

By now two more police bots had come onto the scene, taking pictures and gathering forensic evidence. Bystanders were gathering on the street to observe the unfolding drama, whispering and pointing at Diana, Paradim, and the crumbled form on the car. Mortified at being implicated in a potential scandal, Paradim decided to take control of the situation.

“I’m this girl’s father,” Paradim announced, before Diana could state otherwise. “She’s a minor, so I need to be present with her while she’s questioned.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the police bot.

“What about the unfortunate fellow on the car?” Paradim asked.

“An ambulance will be here shortly,” the police bot answered. “Please get in the squad car with your daughter, sir.”

“These terrible events have traumatized my daughter so much that I don’t think it would help her to be forced to ride in a police car. We’ll meet you at the police station in our own car.”

“Very well.” As the police bot returned to its car, the ambulance bots arrived to attend to Max. Paradim ushered Diana away from the scene to his limousine.

“Why did you lie to the police bot, LLP?” Diana said, as they began their journey to the police station. “What if they arrest you?”

“There’s no need to be hysterical, no one’s going to be arrested,” Paradim said, looking out the window at the passing scenery. “Besides, would you deny that I’ve been more of a father to you than your biological father?”

“No...”

“Just leave everything to me, my dearest Diana, and soon this was just be another bump on the road to your ascent.”

Diana leaned back in her seat, hopeful that Paradim would get her out of this situation and anxious about the mysterious “ascent” that her mentor was planning for her.

*

Diana’s sojourn at the police station was a thankfully brief occurrence. The officers were satisfied with her account of Max’s fall, and she was let off with a stern lecture from one of the female detectives about making better relationship choices in the future, although she didn’t question why a sixteen-year old girl was living in a five bedroom house with no adult supervision. Paradim convinced the police to keep the matter out of the press to spare his “daughter” from any further distress. Although the authorities were not interested in pressing charges against Diana, Paradim knew that Max might try to sue her out of sheer vindictiveness. Unwilling to let a teenage romance gone bad derail his protégé's path, Paradim decided to pay Max a visit to win him over to his own way of thinking.

“Sir, visitation is limited to the family,” the nurse informed Paradim, when he tried to enter Max’s hospital room. The young man had suffered nine cracked vertebrae, two broken legs, a mild concussion, and a broken wrist from his fall, but was expected to make a full recovery, albeit with the aid of physical therapy.

“It’s okay,” the invalid croaked from his hospital bed. “I’ve been expecting him. We have some important matters to discuss. Legal stuff. It can’t wait.”

“Well, if you insist...” the nurse said hesitantly. She looked at Paradim, who flashed her one of his toothy, lupine smiles, before leaving the two to discuss their business.

“I’ll make this simple, von Krueger,” Paradim said, when they were finally alone. “I don’t think you or Diana want to drag this sordid affair into the courts. You’d lose, anyway; no right thinking person would have sympathy you.”

“Why not?” Max asked indignantly. “I’m the victim. Diana’s the one who pushed me out the window.”

“The DA’s not pursuing the case, because they rightfully view her actions as self-defense. When you put that ladder outside that window, what were you planning to do?”

Max fell silent.

“That’s what I thought. However, I consider myself to be a magnanimous man. I’m going to offer you a deal. Stay away from Diana, and no charges will be levied against you.”

“That’s it?”

“I should also mention that when I say ‘Stay away from Diana’ I mean that you should transfer schools, preferably to one in a different country.”

“Why are you going to all this trouble to get me out of the way? Are you trying to hook up with Diana?”

“No, I don’t want to ‘hook up’ with Diana as you so crudely put it.”

“Sure looks like it to me. I mean, I don’t see a Mrs. Paradim anywhere, unless you’re gay or something.”

Paradim narrowed his lupine eyes, and said, “You know, If I was really feeling vindictive, I would have you arrested for statutory rape.”

“Based on what? I didn’t rape anybody. I’m not some Internet perv trolling on little girls. We’re not even two years apart in age.”

“It’s irrelevant. According to California law, the age of consent is seventeen. Diana is only sixteen, making her a child and unable to give consent. After I leave this hospital, I’ll just go to the police station and tell them how you seduced a naive orphaned girl with your lies and then stalked her when she tried to break things off. Then you’ll be thrown in jail with the rest of the perverts and when you come out, you’ll be a registered sex offender, unable to get employment in any legal sector of the economy. If you’re lucky, you’ll be living under an overpass with a dozen other sex offenders, trying to wash your clothes in a drainage ditch. Of course, you’ll probably be deported before that happens, but I don’t think having a conviction for a sex crime will go over very well in Germany either. Maybe they’ll be ‘European’ about it, and be more understanding, but in most countries, the phrase ‘sex offender’ will scare off any potential employers and they won’t bother trying to find out the details.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just go back to Germany. You can work for your father. You can join the army. You could join the circus for all I care. But if I find out that you’re even in the same time zone as Diana, you’ll regret it.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because, unlike you, dear Max, Diana has great things ahead of her. Things that don’t involve having a lazy Hun as dead weight.”

“And what if I decide to see her?” Max insisted, oblivious to the danger he was putting himself in with his reckless talk. “The statute of limitations for statutory rape only lasts so long.”

“Did you ever hear of man named Antoine Ducheval?”

“Yeah, some Frenchie CEO who disappeared about ten years ago. Why?”

Paradim leaned in close to Max’s face and whispered, “I killed him.”

“You liar, you didn’t kill anyone,” Max replied, although his eyes betrayed his fear.

“Technically that’s true. I didn’t kill him, he drowned. Fell off a ship. He was piss drunk and he fell overboard. However, I may have given him a bit of a shove. We had an altercation. Perhaps if he was sober, he wouldn’t have lost his balance.”

“What if I go to the police and tell them you’re a murderer?” Max said triumphantly.

“Who’ll believe you? You don’t have any evidence and you certainly weren’t there; you were just some snot-nosed brat when Ducheval disappeared. Still are, as far as I’m concerned. _I_ know what I’ve done, but you don’t know anything. What you should take away from this conversation is that I’m not a man you want to aggravate. Take my advice and return to your home country. You have money and some would even say you have looks. Do what you will with what you have, just do it away from Diana and myself.”

“Sir Paradim,” a nurse said hesitantly. “It’s time for you to go.”

“That fine, miss, I’ll be seeing myself out,” Paradim said, as he walked towards the door.

“Did you finish up your business with Sir Paradim?” the nurse asked Max.

“Yes, he did,” Paradim said, before Max could reply. “It was very enlightening, wasn’t it, Mr. von Krueger?”

“Yes,” Max replied mechanically.

“I hope you’ll take what I said to heart, Mr. von Krueger?”

“Yes.”

“Then I bid you both good day.” Paradim left the room, leaving Max in a pool of sweat and the nurse wondering why there couldn’t be more men like the dashing Sir Paradim.

*

“I hope you’ll understand how lucky you are that I was able to keep this unfortunate event out of the courts and the media,” Paradim said, as he and Diana lunched at his mansion outside of RM Corp City two days after the violent denouement of her relationship with Max von Krueger.

“I was all set to go to court,” Diana said obstinately. “It would serve him right to go to jail. Maybe if he was some guy’s prison wife, he could get some new ideas what to do in the bedroom, because what he’s been doing is inadequate.”

“That may very well be, but it wouldn’t do for your future career if you became entangled on the wrong side of the legal system. If nothing else, this incident confirms why teenagers shouldn’t cohabitate.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, because I thought I was in love.”

“You were in love with love, not with Max.”

“It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes,” Diana insisted, although she knew that she had figured out the difference less than two weeks after the relationship had started.

“People like us shouldn’t fall in love. We’re too advanced for that. Do you know why I wear this glove all the time?”

Diana stared at Paradim blankly. She had never thought to question why Paradim always wore a glove on his right hand; it was just one of those things that she accepted. Had he worn it when she met him as a child? She couldn’t remember.

“You know there was once a Mrs. Paradim - Adele Emily Rockwell Paradim to be exact - for about six years,” Paradim said. “She was a senator’s daughter from an old family, the kind that are so powerful you never hear about them. That may have been part of the attraction, if you can call it that. I hoped that her connections might prove useful.”

“What happened to her?” asked Diana.

“As my ambitions grew, my desire to deal with the mundane realities of maintaining a relationship, whether emotional or physical, diminished. I admit I was neglectful, but work has always been my primary interest in life, and Adele, quite frankly, was a drag on my plans. Why would I waste time listening to her talk about her plants or some stupid picture of cats she saw on the Internet when I could be making deals? During the latter days of my marriage, I got into a fight with Adele. She was complaining about how my neglect of her made her feel unloved, undesirable, about how she wanted children. I was blunt with her, more so than usual. I said, ‘Adele, there’s no orgasm you can give me that can compare with the orgasm of conquest. You can accept this or leave.’ She did leave, but before she did, she pushed my right hand onto the eye of a gas stovetop - she was cooking while we were having that conversation. I wear this glove to hide the burns.” He pulled off the glove to reveal a hand that was wrinkled and discolored from the injury and the subsequent skin grafts.

“I’m sorry, LLP,” Diana said, staring with warped fascination at Paradim’s injury.

“Don’t be,” Paradim said casually. “Without Adele as baggage, I’ve been single, free to pursue my business and political endeavors to my heart’s content.”

“Why don’t you get reconstructive surgery, so you don’t have to wear the glove all the time?” Diana said.

“For the same reason you haven’t gotten the scar from behind your ear removed. A scar is a reminder that you felt something, that something happened. Sometimes in life, you need that reminder.”

“Did you get Adele arrested?”

“No. I didn’t want to get this sordid domestic dispute in the news. It was just easier to pay her off so she would disappear. She died a couple of years ago, so I don’t have to bother with her anymore.”

“From what?”

“She was participating in some weird New Age workshop and she wandered into the desert and died from heat stroke and dehydration,” Paradim said matter of factly, not grieved at all about his ex-wife’s premature death. “Adele was always very emotional. Fascinated with UFOs, past lives, and all that ridiculous, irrational garbage. Not at all like you, Diana; you’re the very picture of rationality, despite your recent romantic mishap. I suppose we all have to have a few of those while we’re young.”

The way Paradim praised her rationality made Diana blush in a decidedly non-rational manner.

“Anyway, I’m a very private man,” Paradim continued. “I don’t take very many people into my confidence. In fact, you’re really the only person that I can really talk to. That’s why I made you adopt a pseudonym. To hide your baggage.”

“I don’t have any baggage,” Diana said indignantly, recovering from her momentary swoon.

“What do you call being deported?”

“That’s not baggage. That wasn’t even my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter. Americans are very touchy about illegal immigration, especially out here in the West. If people find out you were deported, even as a child, it will raise red flags.”

“Why are you spending so much time trying to change me?”

“I’m not trying to change you, I’m simply helping you chart your course in life. You’ve had very little guidance in your life, and without someone like me, you’d be going nowhere. At worst, you would have ended up like your parents, putting your money up your nose, in your veins, or some other bodily cavity. At best, you’d be wasting your time and intelligence hosting dinner parties for the decrepit gentry back in England, who, by the way, are still gossiping about the identity of your 'real father.' Why would want to waste time with people like that? I know you can do better than that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a country squire,” Diana said weakly, as though she was trying to convince herself, rather than Paradim. “It’s what my grandfather did...”

“Completely different era, my dear. Being a country squire won’t pay the bills these days, as your grandfather found out in the 1960s. If you become an executive at the RM Corp, you’ll never have to worry about taxes again.”

“That’s true...”

“I’m your best friend,” Paradim said abruptly, forcing Diana to meet his intense gaze. “You know this. That’s why you kept my flowers all these years. Contrary to what you might think, my interest in you is not pecuniary or sexual. What I want from you is not money, but loyalty and the guarantee that you will serve me as I served you. Even when you were a frightened, pathetic, victimized seven-year old, I saw not what you were, but what you could become. This is why you can’t be Diana LaFrenz anymore. Diana LaFrenz was a poor, little rich girl, whereas Lady Frenzy will be the ultimate corporate raider. Diana LaFrenz is your past, but Lady Frenzy is your future.”

The girl who would become the woman known as Lady Frenzy was transfixed by Paradim’s words. Even when she was being lauded as a child prodigy or when the Commodore praised her maturity and prudence to his friends, the girl had always felt flawed and dirty because of her parents’ rejection. Even now, she could hear Sophie’s telling her that she didn’t want to be a mother and that she wished she had aborted her.

“Yes,” the girl said in a resolute voice. “I will serve you.”

“Excellent,” Paradim replied, his eyes narrowing with a hidden, malevolent delight. “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me, _Lady Frenzy_.”

*

Per Paradim’s advice, Diana swore off any further romantic entanglements and devoted herself to her studies with a fervor that would have made Ms. Schelling proud. For the next two and a half years, Diana only went to class, the library, and her house, spending whatever free time she had manically practicing her musical instruments, reading about military history, or visiting Paradim’s mansion. The only person she took into her confidence was Paradim, who became a surrogate father figure and best friend. No matter how busy Paradim was, he always made time for Diana, providing her with his personal cell phone number so she could call him anytime she wanted. They continued to meet at his mansion on Sunday afternoons, having tea, playing tennis, swimming, and generally enjoying each other’s company.

Paradim derived as much pleasure from Diana’s company as she did from his. True, his initial intention for Diana from the time he had found her as a seven year-old had been to mold her into a tool he could use in his personal empire, but he discovered that she was the ideal female companion; she was beautiful, intelligent, and eager for a father figure to tell her what to do. Unlike his ex-wife Adele, Diana didn’t require him to be constantly present, either in the emotional or the physical sense. Adele was a needy hothouse orchid, always requiring attention, lest she keel over and die, whereas Diana was a hardy cactus that could flourish under the harshest of conditions. He had all the benefits of having a daughter (i.e., a much younger female to fawn all over him in an obsessive but nonsexual manner) without the hassle of actually raising her. Once she graduated from Stanford at nineteen, the first stage in Paradim’s plan was complete.

*

While Diana LaFrenz studied law and the mating habits of German adolescents, Ziv Zulander continued to lament his low status among his peers. When Ziv wasn’t taking classes or working at the Corp, he was in his home workshop, working on new inventions. His parents didn’t understand why their son spent his free time doing the exact same thing he did when he was at work and school, but they didn’t want to infringe on Ziv’s happiness. Besides, when Ziv was at the Corp he had to work on whatever it was that Dr. Hiss wanted him to do. At home, Ziv could finally work on his own inventions. Necessity was the mother of invention, and Ziv was in desperate need of some companionship. Ziv had been toying with the idea of creating robotic friends since he was a small child, but the personality-free automatons sold by the Corp would hardly do. No, Ziv wanted to create bots that were spontaneous enough to converse and play with, but were programmed to like him. He brought up a digital blueprint on his computer that read, “Prototype #1 for Brain Operated Young Zygoetopic Zoids: Twigg,” and thought about how he might make his plans a reality.


	15. Winterstürme

“Are you afraid?” Paradim asked Frenzy, as the two of them rode the elevator for the board meeting that would install the nineteen year-old as the Vice President. Prior to coming to the RM Corp tower - only her second visit - Paradim had shown Frenzy her new quarters at the Corp Condo Complex. Her main living quarters were on the twenty-eighth floor, but as executive vice-president, she also had sole use of the twenty-ninth and thirtieth floors. Sensitive to his young protégé’s needs, he turned the twenty-ninth floor into a study/music practice area and the thirtieth into a private pool. It was a bit presumptuous for her to have moved in, since the board of directors hadn’t voted her in, but both Paradim and Frenzy were confident of the outcome.

“Why should I be?”

“I thought you might be anxious about the board meeting, that the other members might not take you seriously because of your age.”

“No, I’m not afraid of anything,” Frenzy asserted. “Most of the board members are connected to the LaFrenz family in some form or fashion. Based on my research, many of them used to work for LF Tech under Uncle Michael. It shouldn’t be a hard sell.”

“There’s something I need to tell you before you go in,” Paradim said just before they got out of the elevator.”

“Oh?”

“You remember Dr. Hiss?

“The short fellow who worked in R&D?”

“He’s on the board of directors as well.”

“If I can win everyone else over, it shouldn’t matter,” Frenzy asserted, recalling the unbridled hostility that Hiss exhibited towards her during their first meeting.

“Maybe, but you should know that he looks different now. Very different.”

“He had plastic surgery?”

“Not exactly. Hiss has an obsession with erasing the lines between man and machine. He’s been experimenting on himself and the results are...well, you’ll see. It will be shocking at first, but you’ll get used to it. Just don’t act surprised when you see him.”

Frenzy wondered what kinds of changes Hiss might have done to himself, as she and Paradim walked down the narrow hallway to the boardroom. Her youthful misadventures with the rich and useless had exposed her to a veritable parade of plastic surgery disasters, so she assumed that whatever had befallen Hiss was simply more of the same. Upon entering the room, Frenzy saw, to her satisfaction, that she recognized at least half of the board members, mostly hoary old Britons, as former associates of the Commodore. The men looked at her with a mixture of fascination, desire, and interest. In the corner, however, was Dr. Hiss giving her a venomous look. Despite Paradim’s preemptive warning, nothing prepared Frenzy for Hiss’ metamorphosis. His head was completely bald and shriveled like a raisin, with two sets of tubes running out of his mouth and into a mysterious box mounted on his back. One eye was grossly enlarged, while the other was deformed to the point of uselessness. Hiss had never been tall, even when he was a regular human, but in his cyborg form he was even shorter with a noticeable hunchback. Both sets of his extremities appeared to be robotic, although only the right leg was fully exposed. Although she knew that she shouldn’t, Frenzy found herself staring at Hiss and thinking, _This man is hideous_. She could tell that Hiss sensed her revulsion, which gave him an additional reason to dislike her.

“Gentlemen, I’ve called this board meeting to introduce to you my pick to be the next vice president of the Robotic Megafact Corporation,” Paradim announced, unaware of the mounting tensions between Hiss and Frenzy. “While the recent death of James Ross was an unfortunate tragedy, I sense that it would be an opportune time to infuse our company with some fresh blood. The twenty-first century will be the age of the bot. There is already an entire generation that has become accustomed to seeing bots working in every aspect of life. The Internet Revolution that paved the way for our own Bot Revolution was spearheaded by youth, and the 3A was created by a young man no older than my dear Lady Frenzy. She has the kind of energy and drive that’s needed for the next stage of the RM Corps’s development.”

Frenzy stood up in a show of calculated modesty, while the elderly men clapped appreciatively.

“Gentlemen of the board,” Frenzy began languidly, looking around the room at the enthusiastic faces of her esteemed colleagues. “I am honored to be in your august presences. Becoming the vice president of the RM Corp is a heavy burden to bear, but one that I feel more than qualified to bear. As many of you know, my uncle, Michael, started LF Tech when he was roughly the same age as I am today, and I'm eager to follow in his illustrious footsteps.”

Frenzy was positive that she had captured the hearts and minds of the board until Hiss barked, “Why are you nominating this child to be the second in command of one of the world’s largest corporations?”

“Because she’s the most talented,” Paradim replied, his features tightening at Hiss’ insubordination.

“In a company with thousands of executives and R&D experts, the best you could find was this kid?”

“We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for another teenager who invented the 3A, Hiss,” Paradim said. “Many of the engineers of the Internet Revolution weren’t much older than Lady Frenzy. She’s also a major stockholder in his company, and is entitled to make major decisions.”

“Isn’t she the Commodore’s granddaughter?” asked a decrepit gentleman whose nameplate indicated that his name was Lord Edward Smoot. “The one who’s so smart?”

“Ah, yes, I see it now,” agreed another man. “She has the LaFrenz look.”

“She looks like Michael.”

“You know she entered Oxford at ten? She’s a genius.”

“I’d definitely vote for her. She knows where she’s going in life.”

“Who’s the Commodore?” Hiss snarled, upset that he was out of the loop.

“So it’s settled,” Paradim said triumphantly. “All in favor of electing Lady Frenzy for executive vice president say, ‘Aye.’”

“Aye!” everyone cried, with the exception of Hiss.

“All opposed say ‘nay.’”

“Nay!” shouted a solitary Hiss.

“The ‘ayes’ have it. Welcome to the Corp, Lady Frenzy.”

After the vote, the board members crowded around the new vice-president to give her their congratulations and to look down her cleavage. Frenzy graciously accepted their accolades, while strategically placing herself in such a position so they would be out of luck in terms of _d_ _écolletage._ Hiss remained in his seat, mumbling about how he needed to get back to the lab. Before he left the room, Frenzy shot Hiss the cocky half-smirk that he would become well-acquainted with during his tenure at the Corp.

Paradim cut his way through the crowd of geriatric board members and said, “Hiss, I want you take Frenzy down to your lab and show her around. You two will be collaborating a lot, and you should become better acquainted.”

“Yes, LLP,” Hiss replied obsequiously.

Frenzy found it impossible to read Hiss’ body language due to his mangled appearance, but the fact that he was the sole ‘nay’ voice during her election gave her reason to doubt that his opinion of her was going to improve over time. The two walked in silence until they reached Hiss’ laboratory.

“Zulander, I assume you remember Lady Frenzy,” Hiss barked out to a young man hunched over a workbench with a blow torch.

“Yes, Dr. Hiss,” the young man replied meekly, pulling himself up to his full height.

Frenzy thought nothing could be more shocking than Hiss’ transformation, but she was proved wrong when she saw how much Ziv Zulander had changed. The braces were gone, his skin was clear, and he was now taller than Frenzy by two or three inches. He was still awkward, but this quality now seemed endearing, rather than pathetic.

“I...I’m pleased to meet you, Lazy Frenzy,” Ziv stammered, struggling to make eye contact.

“Likewise, Mr. Zulander,” Frenzy replied. Outwardly, she presented a calm, detached facade. Inside, however, she experienced a torrent of strange emotions that she couldn’t identify or comprehend. Her mind was filled with the majestic voice of Kirsten Flagstad singing, _Du Bist Der Linz_ , and she was almost tempted to break out into song herself.

Frenzy faked interest as Hiss showed her around the lab, while her mind tried to wrap around the fact that the skinny loser she met three years ago had become (at least to her) quite handsome. Since Frenzy’s only experience around normal teenagers was during her stay at the detention shelter, she was only dimly aware that most people went through an awkward stage. Frenzy herself had never experienced such a period, because for her, adolescence had been a time where she simply became beautiful in a different way, with no ungainly interludes. In any case, Frenzy's senses were

Ziv continued to stare at the door, long after Frenzy left, while the Corp’s executive vice president mumbled to herself in German, “ _You are the spring/ for which I longed/in the frosty winter time_...”

*

Five years after being installed as executive vice president of the RM Corp, Frenzy found herself in the Owlshead Mountains, overseeing a group of maintenance bots as they remodeled a house that once belonged to Tommy LaFrenz. The air conditioning unit had recently been installed, which allowed her to actually be inside the house for the first time. Having functioning A/C was no minor thing, since the Owlshead Mountains bordered Death Valley and the temperatures were regularly in triple digits, but it did mean that the house's solar panels would never lack for energy. The house in question, which had been built almost twenty years before Frenzy was born, was an odd Y-shaped structure made of white Corian and glass that could best be described as a manifestation of how people in the 1970s imagined twenty-first century houses might look. Part of the house extended into the mountains and was literally cut into the rock, which led Frenzy to believe that Tommy had intended the complex to serve as some kind of bomb shelter in the event that the Cold War turned nuclear, a theory that was further confirmed by the presence of a large cache of long expired canned goods, tattered hazmat suits, and gas masks still in their boxes. Frenzy hadn't even realized that she owned Tommy's bomb shelter of future past, until she noticed that she was paying taxes on a property in San Bernadino County. Frenzy's first impulse was to tear the dilapidated house down and sell the land, but then she reconsidered, deciding that having a wilderness hideaway known only to herself might be useful for those times when she needed a break from being the most famous woman in the world.

Frenzy sank down into a pod-shaped chair and thought about the improbable path that her life had taken over the last five years. The world was just as shocked as Dr. Hiss at the election of a nineteen year girl to the senior vice presidency of the RM Corp. Many people speculated that the girl must have slept her way to the top, while others used the bizarre selection incident as evidence of how difficult it was for ordinary, hardworking people to get ahead in business. Frenzy was well aware that if it weren’t for her family connections, she would have been laughed (and probably groped) out of the boardroom in shame. Determined to prove her detractors wrong, Frenzy became a zealous workaholic, making the RM Corp – and Paradim – an extension of herself.

Any doubts that anyone might have had about her abilities were silenced when she orchestrated what would be known as “the Great Buyout of 2019” six weeks after her election, in which she arranged for the hostile takeovers of most of the other major tech companies. After the Great Buyout, the RM Corp became simply “the Corp” for many people, because it was the dominant corporation in the world, not just in technology but in every other aspect of twenty-first century life. Frenzy was hailed as a business prodigy and even her previous detractors had to admit that she had proved that she was more than capable of being a corporate executive. She smiled at the memory of besting those Silicon Valley know-it-alls, the very ones who dared to make lewd jokes about her and condescend to her like she was just another dumb blonde who was only good for being some rich man's arm candy. Needless to say, they were singing a different tune once they realized she outsmarted them, and there was nothing they could do about it. This was the “orgasm of conquest” that Paradim had told her about, and having had a taste of it, Frenzy was eager for more.

On a personal level, however, Frenzy felt that something was missing. Despite being the most famous and important woman in the world, she had no social life to speak of. Because of her premature exposure to the vices of the rich and useless, Frenzy never attended social functions unless there was a business component. Even when she did go to a party, she tended to sit to the side and watch everyone else. She preferred the company of Paradim, the only person she felt really understood her, and the two left RM Corp City so rarely that when they did, it became a media event. However, no matter how much she worked or socialized with Paradim, the desire to be in a relationship that began when she was at Stanford, never left her.

Her short-term solution to her relationship woes was to establish a friends-with-benefits arrangement with Lord Andrew Smyth-Smith Flyte, a low-level junior executive at the World Bank; they would get together every now and then to have dinner, chat about their respective work lives, and maybe more. Lord Smyth-Smith Flyte was handsome, good in bed, and had the kind of pedigree that her grandfather would have approved of, but privately Frenzy thought he was a bore. Like many British aristocrats, Lord Smyth-Smith Flyte was obsessed with hunting and polo, subjects that didn’t interest her in the least, and he didn’t understand or appreciate the importance of the life of the mind. The only thing Smythe-Smith Flyte and Frenzy really had in common other than sex was that they were both workaholics, but the young lord’s intellectual limitations were such that there only so much they could discuss about their respective workplaces. While Frenzy could easily keep up with Lord Smyth-Smith Flyte when he spoke of derivatives, interest rates, and elasticity, he was unable to reciprocate when she discussed what the best algorithms for Greenbot CPUs were.

A maintenance bot shook Frenzy from her musings, when it approached her with a deteriorated cardboard box and said, “We found these items in an unlocked safe. What do you want to do with them? Save or throw away?”

“Give the box to me and I'll decide,” Frenzy responded.

She looked inside the box, which gave off a strong vinegar smell, and saw that it contained a pile of old 16 mm reel to reel film canisters. Examining the canisters more closely, she saw that they had handwritten labels explaining the contents. The canister on the top of the pile read, “Fun with Hot Toddy.” Another one said, “Sex on the Beach with Hot Toddy” and a third said, “Commune Orgy with Hot Toddy.” Frenzy carefully took one of the reels out of its canister and held it up to the light. A quick examination of the film confirmed that she had a visual record of Tommy's mid-century sexual escapades. She rolled her eyes, put the film back in its canister, and wondered which was worse, finding a pile of sex tapes involving her father or not even being surprised that such things existed. Frenzy thought about burning them, but the scholar in her realized that, as distasteful as the tapes were to her, the Museum of Sex or some other academic establishment might have some use for them, although she'd have to donate them anonymously (preferably some years after her death) to obscure the relationship between herself such an embarrassing scoundrel.

“I'm going to save the tapes,” Frenzy told the maintenance bot. “I'll bring in a team of archival bots later this week and they'll get to work restoring them. Until then, just leave them in the box and put them back in the safe.”

“Very well,” the maintenance bot said, going to put the box up.

Frenzy decided that she had spent enough time in Tommy's desert bunker for one day, and asked another worker bot to prepare her heli bot for departure. She took one last look around at the moth-eaten, but still gaudy animal prints on the ceiling and floor, and the bizarre pod-shaped furniture and sighed, wondering for the millionth time how her father could be so bereft of taste and decorum.

*

“Do you really like those turgid German productions?” Lord Smyth-Smith Flyte asked Frenzy, after they left a performance of _Die Meistersingers_ at the Los Angeles Opera on a night two weeks after her return from the mountains. Frenzy had spent the concert transfixed by the music that she had loved since she was a child, while her erstwhile date watched a soccer game on his smartphone.

“Of course,” Frenzy replied, annoyed at Smyth-Smith Flyte’s lack of culture. “If I didn’t like it, why would I spend six hours watching it?”

“I think most people just go to the opera to be seen,” Smyth-Smith Flyte said knowingly, opening the door of the limousine for her. Flashes from high powered cameras and cellphone cameras alike illuminated the night, as the paparazzi fell all over themselves to get a rare picture of Lady Frenzy outside of RM Corp City. “They don’t really pay attention to what happens on the stage.”

“The problem is that the average person has convinced themselves that opera is boring, so they don’t give it a chance,” Frenzy said, sitting down in the limo and wishing intently to be far away from Smyth-Smith Flyte. “It’s certainly more stimulating than watching sports.”

“Nothing could be more beautiful than football,” Smythe-Smith Flyte assured her. “It's even called 'the beautiful game.' It's like an international language that binds people together in a way that nothing else can.”

“There's nothing 'beautiful' about football,” Frenzy said. “Especially since it's used as a proxy for nationalist and ethnocentric fervor that's no longer PC to state outright.”

“Oh, you're sounding like an American, with your disdain for football,” Smyth-Smith Flyte smirked.

“American football's no better,” Frenzy said. “I've read that the schools here spend more money on that than math. And then Americans wonder why their students do so poorly compared to European and Asian students. It's absurd.”

“The problem is you're an elitist.”

“Yes, I'm an elitist. I'm not going to sit around and get excited about the World Cup or the Super Bowl, like either of them are the best thing I've seen in awhile, because they're not. Besides, you're an elitist too, just in a different way. It's not like the masses are flocking to polo matches, and if they were, I doubt you'd be interested in it.”

“Touché, my dear Frenzy,” Smyth-Smith Flyte replied diffidently, moving close to Frenzy in the hope that she was in the mood for more than opera and contrarianism. “Well, to each his own, I suppose. It takes all kinds to make the world work, doesn't it? And speaking of which, a wise man once said, 'love makes the world go round...'”

“Just drop me off at the Corp,” Frenzy said, wearily enduring Smyth-Smith Flyte’s ministrations and idly wondering if Ziv Zulander was working late.

Smyth-Smith Flyte was clearly disappointed by Frenzy’s rebuff of his attention, but did as she requested without complaint. As she returned to her apartments, Frenzy thought about her growing interest in Ziv Zulander. Unlike Max, where Frenzy had to will herself to like him, her attraction to Ziv was natural and instantaneous, and unlike Lord Smyth-Smith Flyte, who was good for a roll in the hay and not much else, Ziv clearly had something going on in his brain. The problem was that she had no way to act on her desires. While Ziv's attraction to her was blatantly obvious, asking him out directly wasn’t an option; not only would that give every sweaty creep in middle management carte blanche to proposition her, but it would undermine her image as a tough-minded businesswoman. Consequently, the most personal communication Frenzy had been able to have with Ziv was sending him one of those expensive Japanese fruit baskets after the death of his parents in a cash crash back in 2023. The only way a relationship between the two of them could work would be if they were roughly equivalent within the Corp’s hierarchy. However, Ziv’s naivety and lack of ambition, was such that there was only so far he would be able to rise on his own merits. He had been at the Corp for almost ten years and he was still Dr. Hiss’ assistant, and had no interest in rising any higher. Ziv was unconcerned with money, titles, or promotions; he just wanted to invent. Frenzy couldn’t figure out if that was noble or stupid, but she decided that it could work for her, because that meant that Ziv wouldn’t feel threatened by having a girlfriend who was significantly wealthier and more powerful than he was.

Once she reached her apartments, Frenzy sat at her writing desk, pulled out her journal, and began to construct a truth table that she hoped would clear up some of the confusion she felt about how to proceed at this uncertain juncture in her life, taking comfort in the intellectual rigors of formal logic as applied to a very illogical situation.


	16. A Familiar Face

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was for the “rulers of the universe,” and no one ruled the universe more than Lady Frenzy in 2025. The males in the room were fascinated by Frenzy, despite or possibly because they didn’t know anything about her. The Internet reforms ushered in after the Hacker Wars were such that it was no longer possible to just Google a name to find out a person’s background (not that it would have mattered anyway, since the Corp now owned everyone’s private data, thanks to the Great Buy-out), and Frenzy herself never spoke about her background, other than to mention that she had gone to Oxford and Stanford. Conversely, while Lady Frenzy was a mystery to all but a handful of people, she knew many unflattering details about the people she interacted with as vice president of the Corp, since she recognized them as her parents’ former “friends.” The fact that she knew the truth about these seemingly upstanding members of industry and politics gave Frenzy a healthy disdain for others, something she found useful in her dealings as a corporate raider, since she had no guilt when she inevitably had to crush them.

Hiss waddled about five feet behind her, lisping obscenities under his breath, resentful that his bête noire was the center of attention. Frenzy didn’t even know why Hiss bothered to come to these types of events, since he had an antisocial personality and no tact, but Paradim always insisted that they had to act in tandem when on business. In the crowd, she spotted two dour looking men who looked like Ms. Schelling in drag. She wondered who these men could be, until she remembered that Ms. Schelling was from a Swiss banking family.

“Excuse me, sirs,” Frenzy said, eager for a change to breakaway from her malformed colleague. “I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.”

“Otto and Jean Schelling of the Helvetii Banking House,” the two said simultaneously in thick, German-accented English. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise. I think I’ve heard the name Schelling before... Are you related to Germaine Schelling?”

“Yes,” said Otto. “Frau Doktor Schelling is our younger sister. Why do you ask?”

“I met her many years ago. Is she here in Davos?”

“No, she lives in Geneva with her husband.”

“Husband?”

“She married a Negro about fourteen years ago.”

“No, no, you’re not supposed to say ‘Negro,’ Jean,” Otto said. “It’s ‘African-American.’”

“But that can’t be right either, since he’s from Britain.”

“Just ‘black’ will do, gentlemen,” Frenzy interrupted. “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask for her contact information?”

“Oh, not at all,” Otto said, scribbling out a phone number and address on a cocktail napkin. “I’m sure she’d be honored to be visited by such an important personage.”

“Let’s hope so,” Frenzy said, staring at the napkin with an odd sense of trepidation.

*

The address on the napkin indicated that Ms. Schelling lived in Geneva, almost 265 miles from Davos. Going to Geneva would be was a major detour for Frenzy, but something within her compelled her to seek out her old tutor. Hiss was indignant that she was ditching him to attend to vague personal problems, but Frenzy was indifferent to her colleague's rage, since he never needed a reason to be angry at her.

When Frenzy’s limousine reached the address in question, she hesitated for a minute, wondering if she had made the right decision. She pushed the anxiety from her mind, approached the chalet purposefully, and rang the doorbell. The door was answered by Ms. Schelling, who looked much the same as she did fifteen years ago, aside from some extra wrinkles and grey hairs. The minute she saw her old tutor, Lady Frenzy, Executive Vice-President of the RM Corp and Master of the Universe, disappeared, and Diana LaFrenz, the poor little rich girl, returned.

“Don’t stand there with the door open,” Ms. Schelling said brusquely. “Come inside.”

Diana walked inside, grateful to be out of the cold and curious to discover the manner in which Ms. Schelling was now living. The interior of the chalet was a curious mixture of the Alpine, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Caribbean. There were some photographs on the fireplace of Ms. Schelling and her family: herself, two mixed-race children, and a black man who looked familiar, although she couldn’t figure out why. There were also pictures of other tall, humorless, people, that Diana assumed to be her immediate family. One picture showed the four Schelling siblings dressed in traditional Alpine costumes, looking so uncomfortable at their attempt to “have fun” that Diana wondered why they had even bothered dressing up in the first place.

“Well, you look the way I thought you would,” Ms. Schelling said brusquely. “Although I don’t understand why you’re dressed that way.”

“Ma’am?”

Ms. Schelling sighed. “Think rationally. You’re up in the Alps, in the winter, yet you’re dressed in a short skirt, and your breasts are hanging out like a serving wench at a cheap Renaissance fair. What was your rationale for choosing this outfit? ‘My torso is cold, but my breasts are hot, so what will I choose? Right, _this_.’”

“I’ve always worn clothes from the House of Lebec, Ms. Schelling,” Diana said, feeling like a little girl about to get switched again. “This just happens to be what’s in style this season.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to follow them. Haven’t you ever thought how bizarre it is that these male designers create these absurd, dehumanizing clothes and expect women to wear them? I would think that as the owner that you would have some sway over the output.”

“I did intervene to stop the introduction of harem pants for the 2023 women’s line,” Diana said proudly, as if Ms. Schelling would be impressed by such a trivial achievement.

“Well, that’s super,” Ms. Schelling said mockingly. “To what do I owe this visit?”

“I was just in the area...”

“At Davos. Jean and Otto told me. From Davos to Geneva is five hours by train. Not exactly a spur of the moment decision.”

“I used one of the Corp’s private jets, Ms. Schelling.”

“I didn’t think that was allowed during the World Economic Forum.”

“You’d be surprised what the Corp gets away with, Ms. Schelling.”

“I doubt it. The Swiss banks already get away with murder. I’m surprised that you work for the Corp. I just thought that you’d retire to your estate near Oxford or maybe be a professor.”

“Life had other plans for me, Ms. Schelling,” Diana replied, feeling guilty that she hadn’t pursued an academic career. She knew that in Ms. Schelling’s eyes, the best possible thing to be was an academic, whereas business was vulgar and nonintellectual. “Or rather, Sir Lewis had different plans.”

“Ah yes, Sir. Lewis Leon Paradim. Are you two married or just sleeping together?”

“What?” said Diana, naively shocked that anyone, much less Ms. Schelling, could reach such a prurient conclusion about the only functional relationship in her life. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“It’s a yes or no question. Or rather, an either-or.”

“The answer is ‘none of the above.’ He’s like a father to me. Why would you think otherwise?”

“The way you two appear in public - the way you hang on his every word, push the Corp’s agenda like it was your own, act like an enforcer regarding who he comes into contact - it suggests more than just a paternal relationship.”

“It’s not true, Ms. Schelling,” Diana said emphatically.

“If you say so,” Ms. Schelling replied, although the tone in which she said it suggested that she wasn't convinced.

“So, um, I heard from your brothers that you got married,” Diana said, hoping that a discussion of Ms. Schelling’s life would be more agreeable.

“Did they say I married a Negro?” Ms. Schelling smirked.

“They might have.”

“There’s no ‘might’ about it. That’s how they are. I wonder what the great Helveci warriors would say if they knew they descendants would become nebbish, xenophobic bankers.”

“Who is this man?”

“It’s Ian.” Seeing the blank look on Diana face, Ms. Schelling added, “I suppose you only know his as Mr. Wolcott.”

Diana’s blank expression became even blanker, as she tried to process this information. “Would it be presumptuous for me to ask how long you’ve...been together, Ms. Schelling? Or do you prefer Mrs. Wolcott?”

“Mrs. Wolcott is the name of Ian’s mother. Ms. Schelling will suffice. As for us, we’ve been together since 2003, although we didn’t get married until we returned to Europe in 2010.”

“But that would mean that you were together when...” Diana trailed off, trying to integrate this revelation into her own private history.

“Do you find that surprising?”

“I never knew the two of you had that kind of relationship.”

“Why would you? Unlike your parents, I kept my private life private and was strictly monogamous. I suppose your next question will be about children. We have two, a girl Octavia, and a boy, Scipio Africanus.”

“I thought you didn’t like children, Ms. Schelling.”

“I don’t. Not other people’s children. But it would be illogical for people as intelligent as Ian and myself not to reproduce. And once we had one we had to have two to replace ourselves.”

“Are they raised in the same manner that I was, Ms. Schelling?”

“No, it wouldn’t be possible. Homeschooling is illegal in Switzerland. It’s not necessary anyway, because Swiss schools are superior. The kind of education you received is very labor intensive and I don’t think it could do it again, especially since I have a full-time career.”

“Is the a ruler part of your disciplining repertoire, Ms. Schelling?” Diana asked slyly. “Or is there a law about that as well?”

“There is a law about corporal punishment, but it’s irrelevant, as I’ve never felt a need to use to use it with Octavia or Scipio.”

“I guess some children just need to be hit, am I right?”

“I wouldn’t say that...”

“I noticed a teddy bear on the couch. No snuggling up with a dogeared copy of Seneca for little Octavia or Scipio.”

“What’s your point, Diana?”

“You raised me in near isolation for seven years, studying all day, with no vacations, smacking me for no reason, all the while telling me this was the best of all possible worlds, but you wouldn’t dare raise your own children that way.” Part of Diana felt liberated to finally tell Ms. Schelling how she felt, while the other half was terrified at the possible consequences of being so bold. She half-expected Ms. Schelling to break out the ruler on her, but she knew that was impossible; swatting a child with a ruler might be ill-advised, but doing the same to an adult was assault.

“Don’t give me that Michael Jackson ‘Woe is me because I didn’t have a childhood’ business,” Ms. Schelling snapped. “We and everyone else at Will ‘O The Wisp Farm - did the best I could under very adverse conditions. I was told I was going to be a tutor, not a substitute mother. What Lord LaFrenz was asking me to do was beyond what a reasonable person should be asked to do. I’ll admit, I was too quick to use the ruler, and perhaps not as demonstrative a caretaker as you would have liked, but imagine yourself in my situation.”

“You could have at least tried to rise to the occasion,” Diana said bitterly, recalling how Ms. Schelling would push her away when she tried to hug her.

“It’s not easy to bond with a random child, especially if you aren’t maternally inclined.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with your own children.”

“There are biological and chemical processes that facilitate bonding between a mother and her children.”

“Except for mine.” Diana said, glancing at the many pictures of Ms. Schelling’s children that dotted the living room. The only “family pictures” Diana had of she and her parents together were some paparazzi shots that she cut out of magazines several years after the fact. She unconsciously started rubbing the scar behind her ear, the old anger towards Tommy and Sophie that she worked hard to suppress flaring up.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if taking drugs for so many years addled Lady LaFrenz’s brain chemistry. Looking back, I probably was too strict, but what was I supposed to do? It was probably that discipline that prevented you from ended up like some latter-day Drew Barrymore.”

“Drew Barrymore turned out okay,” Diana pointed out. “Eventually...”

“After years of rehab, therapy, failed marriages, and a string of bad TV movies. Be honest. If you had a choice, would you have rather been in my company or that of your mother?”

“Yours,” Diana said quickly. Studying Seneca (in Latin) may not have been the most age-appropriate task for a seven-year old, but it was better than being Tommy and Sophie’s designated driver during Carnival.

“Do you know what happened to Mr. Cherblinko?” Diana asked suddenly. Given the stringency of the new Internet privacy laws, she had never been able to ascertain what happened to her old music tutor after the raid on Will 'O the Wisp Farm by a simple online search, although she had uncovered a number of articles about his musical career during the Cold War.

“He died,” Ms. Schelling said bluntly, unknowing driving an emotional stake through Diana's heart. “From what Ian tells me, he had a heart attack when he was in ICE custody. My guess is that the agents were too rough with him, and the stress led to cardiac arrest. Ironic that Cherblinko survived Soviet repression only to have died at the hands of representatives of the United States government.”

“Germaine, I saw a limousine out front,” a man’s voice shouted, before Diana could respond. “Do you have company?”

Diana turned around and saw Mr. Wolcott, heavier and grayer than she remembered, walking through the front door in the company of a twelve-year old girl and a boy who looked to be around nine.

“Omigod, look Daddy,” the girl exclaimed. “Lady Frenzy is in our house!” The two children that Diana presumed were Octavio and Scipio Africanus ran up to her and inundated her with questions before Mr. Wolcott or Ms. Schelling could say otherwise.

“Diana, it’s so good to see you!” Mr. Wolcott enthused. “I was wondering when you’d show up. You’ve certainly done well for yourself, especially with all that happened to Lord and Lady LaFrenz...”

“You should know that I’m a very different person than Lord and Lady LaFrenz, Mr. Wolcott,” Diana interrupted.

“Of course, you are.”

“I assume these are Octavia and Scipio,” Diana said, looking at the children who were staring at her in awe.

“Won’t you stay for dinner?” Mr. Wolcott said.

“Of course,” Diana said.

Diana was treated to a traditional German Swiss dinner consisting of bread and cheese, while Octavia and Scipio bombarded her with questions. Mr. Wolcott asked a few questions of his own, but Ms. Schelling remained quiet for the entirety of the meal. As Diana made small talk with the family, her peripheral vision noticed that interspersed with the photos of Ms. Schelling’s various relations were several photographs of herself as a young girl. She felt a twinge of pleasure knowing that Ms. Schelling thought enough of her to place some relics of their time together on her mantle.

When dinner was over, Diana took leave of her guests, knowing that she needed to get back to wheeling and dealing with the chattering classes before Hiss said or did something too impolitic.

“Before I go, I just want to say,” Diana said, struggling uncharacteristically to find the words that could adequately describe how she felt. “I know that the circumstances that you had to operate under when you were under were not...ideal, to put it mildly, either for you or for me, and there are things that both of us would probably change if we had the opportunity to do so, but nonetheless, I appreciate you being there for me, in whatever capacity that might have been.”

“ _It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness_ ,” Ms. Schelling answered in Latin, quoting from her favorite philosopher Seneca.

With that, Diana left Ms. Schelling’s chalet and returned to her waiting limousine.

“Where to, Lady Frenzy?” asked the driver bot.

“Back to the Corp’s airport in Geneva,” Diana said, straightening her back and becoming Lady Frenzy once again. “Contact the comptroller and tell them to have an airplane ready for Davos.” As the limousine made its way back to the airport, Diana/Lady Frenzy maintained a stoic expression, but tears streamed down her face, as she thought about Mr. Cherblinko and his lonely and ignominious end.

*

The next day, Lady Frenzy found herself entertaining a Dutch oil executive with Hiss in tow, trying to convince him to provide an exclusive contract for the RM Corp, when her past intruded in an unexpected way.

“ _You’re such a charming young lady_ ,” the Dutch oilman gushed, speaking in German and putting an unwholesome emphasis on the word _young._ “ _And it’s not just because of your, ah_ , _talents and assets_ , _you might say, although that helps. It’s because you can talk about any subject in the world and sound intelligent._ ”

“ _Just the fruits of a well-rounded education_ ,” Frenzy said modestly, as she took a dainty sip of wine and deftly avoided the oilman’s eager hands. Well aware that the oilman’s sole interest was Frenzy, Hiss decided to focus on his dinner, sucking escargot out of their shells in a nauseating fashion.

“ _What’s a ravishing creature like yourself doing with a creature like that_?” the oilman asked, gesturing towards Hiss.

“ _I think he’s the Mime to my Siegfried,_ ” Frenzy replied, causing both of them to laugh. Like most Americans, Hiss only spoke English, and Frenzy loved that she could openly insult him in other languages without him knowing.

“ _You know, a long time ago, I saw a little girl who reminded me of you_ ,” the oilman continued. “ _Named Diana LaFrenz. Do know know her_?”

“ _She’s my cousin_ ,” Frenzy replied, without thinking. By now, Frenzy had grown accustomed to the idea that Lady Frenzy and Countess Diana LaFrenz were two different people, and she wanted to keep it that way. The visit with Ms. Schelling solidified in her mind how much she preferred being Lady Frenzy, corporate raider and twenty-first century Venus, rather than poor, unloved Diana LaFrenz.

“ _Ah, yes. That makes sense. LaFrenz. Frenzy. Poor little Diana was so cute and smart, but her parents were idiots. I heard they died of drug overdoses. I wonder what happened to her_...”

“Y _ou don’t need to worry about Diana LaFrenz_ ,” Frenzy answered dryly. “ _She’s done quite well for herself. She went to Oxford University at ten and later got a law degree from Stanford University_.”

“ _That’s good. It can be very hard to overcome a bad family situation_.”

Frenzy glanced over at Hiss to see if he was following the conversation, wondering if he was making the connection between Lady Frenzy and Diana LaFrenz. Fortunately, her esteemed colleague was shoveling escargot into his mouth, oblivious to her doings.


	17. The Rising Sun

Several days after Frenzy returned from Davos, Paradim stared out the window of his office at the top of RM Corp tower, with a pensive expression. In a quarter of a century, he had turned the Corp from a legacy hardware producer into the largest and most innovative company in history. During that same period, he managed to mold, both indirectly and directly, an emotionally disturbed aristocrat with unresolved parental issues into the most powerful woman in the world. Indeed, the RM Corp and Diana LaFrenz had been both been born at the same time, although Lady Frenzy wouldn’t officially come into existence until 2019. Regardless, both were his creations and he guarded them jealously. Theoretically, Paradim should have been content with the status quo. He was the richest man in the world and had the unquestioned loyalty of the most beautiful woman in the world, and has indirect control of most of the media and business worlds.

But it wasn’t enough.

Paradim remembered the slights he had received on his way to the top: school masters who never let him forget he came from lowly origins, the worthless aristocrats who looked down on him for actually working for a living, the techies who scorned him because of his lack of engineering know-how, his useless ex-wife Adele with her irrational demands on his time and attention, journalists complaining about this or that aspect of the Corp's business practices, politicians making laws that made it difficult for him to conduct his business in the manner of his choosing. If Paradim was a “bigger man,” he would have simply disregarded these insults and offenses, and basked in the wealth and accolades he had earned. But Paradim was not a “bigger man,” and he intended to let his enemies, real and imagined, know it.

Paradim turned around and faced his second-in-command, his other great creation, who sat in her customary seat to his right.

“You're probably wondering why I've summoned you here today,” Paradim said at last.

“I presume that it's not to talk about Davos,” Frenzy asked quizzically.

“Davos never changes. I want to discuss with you the most important decision I've ever made. The RM Corp may be the biggest, richest, and most powerful company in the world, but I need to extend my power into the political realm. While it is true that the Corp's lobbyists, lawyers, Super PACS, and NGO observer status at the UN gives us political influence that no other corporation has ever had, it's time to make our move for the ultimate prize.”

“World President?”

“Perhaps, but if my plan works out the way I hope, I won't need to bother with the World Presidency.” Paradim reached into his desk, and pulled out a thick binder-clipped document whose cover read, “PROJECT KRANG: TOP SECRET CC: FRENZY, HISS.”

“I want you to read this entire memo tonight, but I'll give you a brief synopsis. You know how I told you that you were going to rule the world back at Whigby Hall? I wasn't being facetious. Under my guidance, Dr. Hiss has developed Krang chips, which will not only increase the capabilities of 3As, but allow them to be remotely controlled by me. The ubiquitous nature of 3As is such that if every bot in the world contains a Krang chip that I can easily bring all the governments in the world to their knees within a single afternoon. The Corp is going to offer a free Krang Chip upgrade program for all the bots in the world. Once the chips are in, the world will belong to us.”

This idea would have seemed insane to a “normal person,” but Frenzy herself would have been the first to admit that she was far from “normal,” and Paradim's plan for world domination seemed quite logical from her perspective. Ms. Schelling's history lessons focused on “Great Men,” particularly those from Plutarch's _Parallel Lives_ , most of whom had engaged in extensive military campaigns to conquer the known world. Since Paradim was certainly as great, if not more so, than Alexander the Great or Napoleon in the mind of Frenzy, it made perfect sense to her that he should dominate the political world in the same way that he did the economic realm.

“Does anyone else know about this?” Frenzy asked, flipping through the pages of the lengthy document.

“Only Hiss. We three are the only ones who can know about this. Once you finish reading this memo, you need to dispose of it. We have to leave as little of a paper trail as possible.”

“When does Project Krang begin?”

“Tomorrow. I'm going to announce it at a press conference with Lonnie Chang.”

“You're doing a press conference?” Frenzy asked, slightly astonished, since Paradim hated doing PR, and had designated her the go-to person for the press whenever he had something to say to the public.

“Yes, I think it would be best if I did it,” Paradim said. “If nothing else, people will watch just to see me talk. Not that I'd actually say anything incriminating.”

The two laughed, both convinced that the final victory would be theirs.

*

While Paradim laid out his plans for world domination to his enraptured protégé, Ziv sat in his office, pondering the trajectory of his life. Unlike the palatial offices owned by the Corp’s executives, Ziv’s office was about the size of his bedroom at his parent’s house and most of the space in the room was taken up by computer equipment. Thinking about his parents made Ziv’s heart sink, as he recalled how they were killed in a car accident two years ago, leaving him to raise Blitzy by himself. Feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of having to raise an eight-year old girl alone, Ziv enrolled Blitzy at the Corp's junior boarding school for girls. Ziv often felt guilty for having deposited his sister at the boarding school, since it wasn't like he was working in another city or continent, but she seemed happy enough with the routine, and surmised that it was probably best that she be in an all-female environment to make up for the loss of their mother. As he thought about women in the general sense, Ziv's thoughts soon turned to one woman in particular, and wondered if the fruit basket Frenzy sent him after the death of his parents was anything more than a mere formality.

Ziv's thoughts remained fixated on Frenzy, as he poked around Dr. Hiss' private files on the Corp R&D department's IntraWeb. These files were normally protected by a series of firewalls, fiendishly difficult passwords, and multiple layers of encryption, but were easily disarmed by Ziv, who had been the primary coder and designer for the Corp's online infrastructure. Every week or so, Ziv would check in on Hiss' private files to ensure that his supervisor wasn't planning on stealing his ideas or otherwise exploit him. While Ziv was naive about many aspects of life, he had been around Hiss long enough to know that he trusted him at his own peril.

Much to Ziv's relief, there were no plagiarized blueprints, codes, or designs in Hiss' secret files, but there was large word processing document entitled, “PROJECT_KRANG.” Like every other Corp employee, Ziv had known about the Krang chip roll-out for some time, and knew that Paradim was planning to do a press conference to publicly announce it. Ziv's first instinct was to ignore the file, but he was curious about the inner workings of the Krang chip, which had been conceived and developed entirely by Hiss, and copied to file to his own computer.


	18. Adios ZZ

The day after Frenzy received the “Project Krang” memo, she and Hiss gathered in her office to watch Paradim's press conference with Lonnie Chang. At first, Frenzy was afraid Paradim's rusty interview skills might end the interview before it began, but her fears were quickly eased when she saw how masterfully he played the fawning Lonnie Chang, who was so awed to be in his presence that she was content to throw out softball questions.

“I do have an announcement to make,” Paradim said, sidestepping the issue of whether he planned to run for World President. “But it is not about politics. Rather, I want to announce the introduction of the Krang chip, which will triple the capacities of our 3As. The Krang chip is so wonderful, so revolutionary, that the Corp will be providing free Krang chip upgrades for all the bots in the world. While doing so will come at a considerable cost to the Corp, I view it as a present from the Corp to our loyal public.”

“And once the chips are in, the world will be ours in a single day,” Frenzy remarked to Hiss. “LLP is a genius to have come up with such an foolproof plan.”

Before Frenzy could elaborate further on the brilliance of Project Krang, her office telephone rang. “This is Lady Frenzy,” she said.

“Data bot 2673-1 with an urgent message to Dr. Hiss,” an automated 3A voice replied.

“A data bot wants to speak with you,” Frenzy told Hiss, shoving the phone in his direction.

“Dr. Hiss, here.”

“Security around the Project Krang document has been breached. Our records show that Ziv Zulander downloaded the document to his work computer last night at 20:00 hours. We have tried to contact you, but you were not in your office.”

Dr. Hiss' single good eye widened, and he slammed the phone back onto the receiver, causing Frenzy to jump slightly. “That punk Ziv Zulander knows everything,” Hiss fumed.

Frenzy's expression remained stoic, but inwardly, her stomach lurched. No one but Paradim, Hiss, and herself was supposed to know about the true purpose of the Krang chip upgrade program. Surely, he would try to disrupt it in some way. She followed Hiss to the security control command center, where he programmed all of the Corp's defense bots to engage in a single-minded search and destroy mission.

“I want every single security bot, green bot, and personal police bot we have searching ever inch of RM Corp City for Zulander,” Hiss said, as security bots flooded out of the warehouse-like space in search of the rogue scientist. "We have to smoke him out before he ruins Project Krang."

“Search for him, but don't hurt him in the process,” Frenzy replied, trying to not to let her voice betray her conflicted feelings. “He's too valuable of a scientist to destroy, and I know I can convince him to change his mind on Project Krang.”

“As far as I'm concerned, Zulander can be captured dead or alive,” Hiss growled. “All the matters is that he's caught before he disrupts our plans.”

Frenzy sighed at Hiss' irrational response. The Corp was swarming with journalists, and he wanted to launch a full-fledged military campaign. Like that wouldn't lead to a bunch of uncomfortable questions. She decided that the only way for get Hiss to dial back his bots of war was to inform Paradim of the unfortunate wrinkle in his otherwise brilliant plan.

“Where're you going?” Hiss demanded, when he saw Frenzy leaving.

“I'm going to tell LLP everything,” Frenzy said forthrightly.

“Not without me, you're not,” Hiss said, not trusting his superior to provide an unbiased narrative.

“Why Dr. Hiss, don't you trust me?” Frenzy asked mockingly.

*

By the time Hiss and Frenzy arrived at the RM Corp Tower, Ziv Zulander had already destroyed dozens of security bots, armed only with his wits and two of his unusual creations. Worse than that, the entire confrontation had taken place in front of a huge crowd of Corp employees, who were wondering why security bots were shooting at their mild-mannered colleague. When Frenzy received an encrypted text from security control detailing the very public firefight, she paled, and realized that the possibility that the breach between Ziv and the Corp was becoming too wide for her to smooth over with her diplomatic skills. Part of her worried about Ziv's safety, while another part was furious at his betrayal.

_If it wasn't for LLP, Ziv would just be another unemployed loser, living in someone's basement_ , Frenzy thought angrily, as she and Hiss rode the elevator to Paradim's office. _And this is how he pays LLP's generosity. I know that if it wasn't for LLP, I'd just be another upper-class twit. Well, maybe not a twit, I'm too smart for that. Maybe just a perpetual shut-in._ That anyone would object to the notion of Paradim as ruler of the world was not a possibility that crossed Frenzy's mind.

Once the elevator reached its destination, Frenzy didn't waste any time; she burst into his office, unconcerned about the presence of Lonnie Change and her camera crew, and said, “I'm sorry to interrupt LLP, but there's a...situation that requires your immediate attention.”

Reading the panic in her superficially calm voice, Paradim rose from his desk and left with Frenzy, with Hiss scowling and limping in their wake.

*

“Zulander has already destroyed dozens of our security bots, and you can bet he's not finished yet,” Hiss said, stumping around angrily, while Frenzy sat casually on a table, and Paradim stood with his back to both of them. “He could single-handedly jeopardize the entire Project Krang operation.”

"If Zulander could cause so much damage with only a skeleton force of his own, all this shows is that Dr. Hiss' bots are unable to provide for the Corp's most basic security needs,” Frenzy said accusingly.

“I'm positive that the Krang chip factory is going to be Zulander's next target,” Hiss said, ignoring Frenzy's charge of misconduct. “I want authorization to go to full security alert.”

“Still, Zulander needs to be captured alive and unhurt,” Frenzy blurted out. Realizing that she sounded too emotionally involved, “Because he's...valuable to the Corp. He invented the 3As and dozens of other things. I positive that I can convince him to be loyal to us again.”

“I don't doubt that Zulander is a brilliant scientist, but that only makes him that much more dangerous,” Paradim said. “We don't know what kinds of machines he has at his disposal to use against us. Scientists are a dime a dozen, but the Krang chips are too precious to lose.”

“I'm authorizing you to go to full security alert, Hiss” Paradim continued, turning around to face Hiss and Frenzy. “But be careful. Lonnie Chang and her people are still in RM Corp City, and the last thing we need is negative publicity as we roll out Project Krang.”

As Hiss limped off, eager to unleash the Corp's full military force on his hated rival, Paradim turned his attention to his young protégé, who seemed to have an inappropriate level of concern for the welfare of the troublesome Ziv Zulander. “Lady Frenzy, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that your concern for Ziv Zulander goes beyond a professional interest.”

“O-of course not,” Frenzy stuttered, painfully aware that she was letting her usually well-hidden emotions bubble to the surface at a most inopportune time. “My first and only allegiance has and always will be to you.”

“I should hope so,” Paradim said, turning his back to her again.

*

Frenzy staggered into her apartment six hours after the triumphant unveiling of Project Krang, and six hours after her plans to somehow romantically snare Ziv Zulander unraveled. A maid bot met Frenzy at the door with a glass of wine, and she sat down at her writing desk to formulate a new truth table that would capture the new reality of the conflict of which she found herself in the epicenter. Ziv hadn't simply left the Corp, but was actively fighting against everything Paradim stood for, which also happened to be everything that she herself had worked for since she was a teenager. She wanted Ziv, because she was convinced that they had the potential to have the intense connection she craved, but the idea of Paradim considering her disloyal for her clandestine affections was too painful to contemplate.

But Frenzy was confident that she could have it all – money, world domination, Paradim's trust and loyalty, and Ziv Zulander's love – a conviction that became increasingly stronger as she wrote out her truth table, because she knew that her will and her reason was strong enough to make it so. Ms. Schelling had honed the latter, while Paradim showed her how to use the former to help her rise from her previous state of passive victimhood to that of an active subject.

“I feel confident that my rhetoric skills are such that I could easily reconcile Zulander and LLP if given the right circumstances and opportunity,” Frenzy wrote on the back of her truth table. “If France and Germany could be reconciled after centuries of hostilities, there's no reason why this rift can't be suitably mended. There will be no need to choose between Ziv and LLP, because I'll have both.”

Upon finishing her truth table, Frenzy folded it up and tucked it into her dogeared copy of Seneca, which she in turn placed under the pillow in her elaborate bedchamber. Frenzy knew that Ziv Zulander would eventually yield to her charms and her authority, and it was only a question when and not if.

 

END OF PART I


End file.
